TS 


47 


OF   THE 


AMERICAN  ECONOMIC  ASSOCIATION 


VrtT,      IT      ~NTO      4-  I  Entered  •*  the  Post-office  »t  Baltimore,  ltd.,  I  Six  NUMB«RS  A  T«A» 

Y  UU.   XA.   0.11  U.    tt.  }  as  aeoond-cla«  matter.  ;  PMC. «4.0«  4  TMAK. 


THE  EARLY  HISTORY 


OP   THB 


I     English  Woollen  Industry. 

UC-NRLF 


32   131 


W.  J. 


Y,  M.  A., 


FELLOW  OF  LINCOLN  COLLEGE, 

Lecturer  in  Lincoln  .ad  Corpus  Christi  Colleges, 

OXFORD. 


AMERICAN  ECONOMIC  ASSOCIATION. 

SEPTEMBER,    1887. 


PRICE  SEVENTY-FIVE  CENTS. 


THE  EARLY  HISTORY 

OP  THE 

ENGLISH  WOOLLEN  INDUSTRY 

By  W.  J.  ASHLEY,  M.  A. 

j.  xi.  ISTo.  <£. 


ERRATA- 

THE  fact  that  the  writer  has  been  unable  to  revise  the  proof- 
sheets  has  led  to  a  plentiful  crop  of  errata.  As  some  of  these 
alter  the  sense,  it  is  hoped  that  the  reader  will  begin  with 
glancing  through  them  and  making  the  necessary  corrections. 

P.  11,   1.     2,  read  "Some  Unsettled  Questions/' 

13,  10,  after  thus  delete  , 

14,  3,  for  needs  read  need. 

15,  3,  from  bottom,  after  Tucher  delete  — 

16,  9,  from  bottom,  for  Rolls  read  Roll ;    1.  1,  from  bottom, 

.for  Witrthschaftliche  read  Wirthschaftliche,  for 
ausgange  read  Ausgange. 
19,        19,  for  latter  read  later. 

6,  from  bottom,  for  quad  read  quod ;  1.  3,  from  bottom, 
for  Maddox  read  Madox  ;  1.  2,  from  bottom,  delete 
(  )  before  and  after  Gilda  Mercatoria. 

21,  18,  insert  marks  of  quotation  before  no  one,  and  also  in  1.  20, 

after  hommes  and  before  and  after  of  the  town;  11. 
27  and  33,  for  Bevefly  read  Beverley ;  1.  29,  for 
House  read  Hanse; 

22,  bottom,  for  Stallaguim  :   Praretatio  read    Stallagium  : 

Prsestatio. 

23,  4,  for  eariler  read  earlier. 

3,  from  bottom,  for  tinetos  read  tinctos. 

25,  7,  from  bottom,  for  Guilda  read  Gilda. 

26,  bottom,  for  Custumarain  read  Custumarum. 

27,  3,  from  bottom,  for  chescum  read  chescun. 

28,  14,  delete  ,  after  instance;    1.  23,   read ;  for  ,  after  tailors; 

1.  31,  jfortelarie  read  telarii. 

29,  1.4,  from  bottom,  for  Oe  read  Qe  ;  1.  5,  from  bottom,  for 

Telarie  read  Telarii. 

30,  12,  from  bottom,  for  magistre  read  magistri. 

31,  1,  for  the  evidence  read  other  evidence. 

32,  21,  for  or  read  nor  ;  bottom,  for  Maddox  read  Madox. 

33,  14,  delete  ,  after  existed  ;  1.  19,  for  connot  read  cannot ;  last 

line  but  one  delete  2,  and  for  16  read  Ib. 

34,  16,  after  safely  insert  and  ;  1.   19,  for  follow  read  fall ;  I. 

29,  for  us  read  no. 

08,  15,  for  low  countries  read  Low  Countries ;  last  line  but  one, 
for  Dodge  read  Lodge ;  last  line,  for  Astevelde 
read  Artevelde. 


P.  39, 1.  13,  after  how  delete  , 

40,         2,  from  bottom,  for  Et  read  et. 
£6*        9,,/07\empanReled  raid  empaneled. 

•it  **  19,  \/£rtl^w»  Qoitntries  read  Low  Countries. 

49**  ^10*,  from  tiottorp^  for  entranlos  read  extraneos ;  for  sud 


•*"*•*  60,*  •**'3*,'25f  3*07- 'Weavers'  read  Weavers  ;  1.  26,  for  pannoe'  read 

pannor'  ;  1.  28,  for  Frauchises  read  Fraunchises. 
51,  22-3,  and  n.  2. '  This  interpretation  of  the  word  chamber 
is  mistaken.  On  comparing  the  ordinances  of 
other  companies  given  in  the  Memorials  (e.  g.  of 
the  Pelterers,  p.  329),  it  is  clear  that  it  refers  to 
the  Guildhall ;  and  the  meaning  here  apparently 
is  that  persons  who  have  caused  affrays  shall  be 
tried  at  the  Guildhall,  and  shall  not  be  excused 
from  the  fine  on  the  ground  that  they  have  already 
paid  a  fine  to  the  Sheriffs. 

53,  9,  from  bottom,  for  Col.  read  Cal. 

54,  10,  for  country  read  county;  1.  29,  for  pannorun  read  pan- 

norum. 

58,  bottom,  for  Tucker  read  Tucher. 

59,  16.  This  seems  too  strongly  expressed,  as  also  the  state- 

ment at  the  top  of  p.  63.  It  is  clear  from  a  Lei- 
cester ordinance  of  1257  (see  Thompson,  History  of 
Leicester},  ordering  that,  of  the  merchants  from 
that  town  attending  the  fair  of  S.  Botolph,  the 
clothiers  (pannarii  ?)  should  stand  on  the  southern 
•side  of  the  market  and  the  wooldealers  on  the 
northern,  that  there  were  already  a  number  of 
merchants  selling  cloth  and  nothing  else.  But 
the  class  of  dealers  in  cloth  was  certainly  not  con- 
siderable until  the  middle  of  the  14th  century. 

60,  last  line  but  one,  for  paravia  read  pararia. 

61,  last  line  but  two,  for  ende  read  Ende. 

62,  22,  for  §  §  read  pp;  1.  27,  for  Eisserands  read  Tisserands. 

67,  3,  from  bottom,  after  acts  for  ,  read  of;  next  line  add  , 

after  translation. 

68,  20,  for  on  read  as. 

70,  6,  from  bottom,  for  ,  read  ;  after  woole.    After  wool  read  , 

71 ,  10,  for  this  read  its. 

72,  3,  from  bottom,  for  staple  read  stable. 

73,  11,  from  bottom,  for  ,  read;  after  distinct. 

74,  17,  from  bottom,  for  exists  read  exist. 

3,  from  bottom,  for  Handecraft  read  Handicraft. 

76,  4,  from  bottom,  delete  ,  after  evidence. 

77,  16,  add  quotation  marks  after  people  and  delete  them,  after 

unreasonable,  1.  22. 

78,  10,  for  devise  read  device;  1.  24,  for  enacted  read  exacted. 

79,  13,  add  ,  after  sons;  1.  17,  for  ;  read  , 

80,  16,  from  bottom,  delete  ,  after  land;  1.  9,  from  bottom,  read 

Ochenkowski,  England's  Wirthschaftliche  Ent- 
wickelung;  1.  3,  from  bottom,  for  gras's  read  graze; 
and  delete  ,  after  feed. 

82,         5,  from  bottom,  for  mention  read  mentions. 

85,        19,  for  two  and  three  read  second  and  third. 


Lih 

/ 


THE   EARLY   HISTORY 


OP    THE 


ENGLISH  WOOLLEN  INDUSTRY. 


OF  THE 


AMERICAN  ECONOMIC 


VAT     TT    "NTn    A.          i  J  Srx  »UMBKRa  *  TBA 

VOL.    II.    JlSU.    *.  £  •{  PRICB  $4.00  A  TKAR 


THE  EARLY  HISTOR 


OF  THE 


English  Woollen  Industry. 


BY 

W.  J.  ASHLEY,  M.  A., 

FELLOW  OF  LINCOLN  COLLEGE, 

Lecturer  in  Lincoln  and  Corpus  Christi  Colleges, 

OXFORD. 


AMERICAN  ECONOMIC  ASSOCIATION. 
SEPTEMBER,  1887. 


COPYRIGHT,  1887,  BIT  AMERICAN  ECONOMIC  ASSOCIATION. 


BALTIMORE : 
FROM  THE  PRESS  OF  GUGGENHEIMER,  WEIL,  &  Co. 

1887. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

I.   THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  GUILD  SYSTEM 13 

1.  Early  Establishment  of  Guilds  of  Weavers 15 

2.  Kelation  of  the  Guilds  to  the  Governing  Bodies....  18 

3.  Merchant  Guilds 19 

4.  Antagonisms  Between  Burghers  and  Artisan  Guilds.  20 

5.  Guild  of  Burellers 26 

6.  Kegulations  for  Guilds  of  Woollen  Manufacture 28 

7.  Ordinances  Imposed  by  the  Central  Authority 31 

8.  Foreign  Trade  in  Wool 34 

II.  THE  FIRST  IMMIGRATION 40 

1.  Encouragement  of  Immigration  by  the  Government  41 

2.  Account  of  Foreign  Settlers 42 

3.  Exports  and  Imports  of  Wool  and  Cloth 45 

4.  Monopolizing  Spirit  of  the  Weavers 45 

5.  Relation  of  the  Foreign  Workmen  and  the  Guilds..  47 

6.  Relative  Decline  of  the  Weavers'   Guild 52 

7.  Manufacture  of  Worsteds 54 

8.  Results   of  the   Increase   of  -£!loth-Maiiufacture   in 

England > 56 

III.  THE  RISE  OP  A  TRADING  CLASS 58 

1.  The  Rise  of  the  Cloth  Trade 59 

2.  The  Company  of  Drapers 62 

3.  The  Society  of  Merchant  Adventurers 67 

IV.  THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  DOMESTIC  SYSTEM 71 


1.  Four  Stages  in  the  Development  of  Industry 72 

2.  Loss  of  Control  by  the  Guilds 75 

3.  Effect   of  the    Growth  of  Woollen  Manufacture  on 

Agriculture 79 

4.  The  Clothiers..  81 


PREFACE. 


The  following  essay  has  grown  out  of  a  paper  read 
before  the  Oxford  Economic  Society  in  the  January 
of  this  year.  It  deals  with  a  strictly  limited  sub- 
ject :  it  does  not,  save  incidentally,  touch  the  history 
of  the  raw  material,  its  production,  quality  and  price: 
nor  that  of  the  finished  article  after  it  has  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  dealers.  It  is  with  the  inter- 
mediate stages  that  we  are  here  concerned — the  posi- 
tion, organization,  relations  among  themselves,  of 
those  actually  engaged  in  the  manufacture. 

I  cannot  but  be  sensible  of  the  honor  which  the 
American  Economic  Association  have  done  me  by 
permitting  me  to  join  in  th^ir  work.  American 
economic  writing  is  attracting  increasing  attention 
from  the  younger  generation  of  Englishmen  ;  they 
look  to  America  to  contribute  in  the  future  far  more 
largely  to  the  solution  of  social  problems  than  is  pos- 
sible for  the  mother  country.  For  the  United  States 
have  obvious  advantages,  both  in  the  material  they 
offer  and  in  their  means  for  dealing  with  that  ma- 
terial. In  the  first  place,  that  country  exhibits  the 
forces  of  competition  and  capital  working  on  a  larger 
scale  than  elsewhere,  and  in  a  freer  field,  uncrossed 
by  any  of  the  influences  of  decaying  feudalism. 
Hence  the  importance  to  Europe  as  well  as  to 
America  of  the  questions  which  are  forcing  them- 
selves to  the  front  in  the  United  States — such  ques- 
tions as  those  of  Rings  and  Monopolies,  of  Railway 


8  PREFACE.  [303 

Management,  of  Labor  Societies,  of  Large  and  Small 
Farming.  Karl  Marx,  twenty  years  ago,  described 
England  as  the  classic  land  of  capitalist  production ; 
that  is  a  title  that  no  longer  belongs  to  her. 

In  the  second  place,  while  in  England  political 
economy  has  altogether  lost  the  ear  of  the  public, 
and  its  official  teachers  may  be  counted  on  the 
fingers  of  one  hand,  in  the  United  States  it  is  a 
subject  of  increasing  interest  to  the  educated  world, 
and  the  professors  of  the  many  colleges  and  the 
officers  of  the  statistical  bureaus  form  a  considerable 
body  of  competent  investigators.  The  zeal  of  Ameri- 
can students  has  sent  them  to  the  German  universi- 
ties, whence  they  have  brought  back  a  new  enthu- 
siasm and  a  new  method.  Yet  from  the  dangers  of 
servile  imitation  they  are  freed  by  their  position. 
Not  even  the  absurd  exaggerations  of  German 
writers  themselves  can  obscure  the  fact  that  it  is 
from  Germany  that  the  impulse  has  come  in  our 
own  time  to  a  new  and  more  fruitful  development  in 
Economics.  But  certainly  no  observer  of  German 
thought  can  fail  to  see  that,  though  most  vigorous 
within  its  range,  its  range  is  exceedingly  narrow. 
German  writers  seldom  realize  the  atmosphere  of 
individual  initiative  in  which  English  and  American 
thought  moves  ;  and  while  they  are  acquainted  with 
the  latest  doctoral  dissertation,  they  are  often  totally 
ignorant  of  all. English  economical  work  since  Mill's 
Principles.  But  American  teachers  will  be  com- 
pelled, by  the  traditions  of  their  country,  the  needs 
of  their  pupils,  and  the  criticisms  of  their  opponents, 
to  give  due  weight  to  the  forces  of  competition  and 
to  the  arguments  of  the  more  recent  English  econo- 
mists. Thus  a  body  of  men  are  beginning  to  appear 


304]  PREFACE.  9 

as  familiar  with  Cairnes  and  Bagehot  as  with  Knies 
and  Schmoller,  with  Bismarck's  legislation  as  with 
Trades-Unionism  and  Cooperation. 

The  "  new  school "  in  America  has  had  the  best  of 
all  testimony  to  its  stimulating  qualities  in  the  grave 
rebukes  with  which  it  has  been  met.  This  is  not  the 
place  to  speak  of  the  criticisms  which  have  been 
directed  against  the  claim  of  "  the  new  Political 
Economy"  to  an  ethical  character,  or  against  its  in- 
sistence on  the  functions  of  the  state.  So  far  as  the 
historical  method,  however,  is  concerned,  it  must  be 
said  that  there  seems  some  danger  lest  the  real  char- 
acter of  the  divergence  of  opinion  should  escape 
attention  in  unnecessary  contentions  about  prelimi- 
naries. The  question  at  issue  between  the  deductive 
and  historical  economists  is  not  that  of  the  truth  or 
falsehood  of  the  main  Ricardian  doctrines.  There  is 
a  difference  of  emphasis,  a  difference  of  tone,  but 
not  a  difference  in  ultimate  belief  concerning  them. 
From  the  side  of  the  abstract  economists  it  is  now 
freely  granted  that  these  doctrines  are  only  hypo- 
thetically  true,  that  they  are  true  only  so  far  as  cer- 
tain conditions  are  granted.  From  the  other  side, 
however  much  disposition  there  may  be  to  deny  that 
the  conditions  are  ever  completely  realized,  it  is  con- 
fessed that  so  far  as  they  are  realized  the  doctrines 
based  upon  them  are  true.  To  continue  fighting  upon 
this  ground  is  only  to  slay  the  slain.  Where  the  real 
divergence  begins  is  upon  the  question  what  use  is 
to  be  made  of  these  doctrines,  which  after  all  every 
economist  accepts  and  accepts  in  the  same  sense. 
The  "orthodox"  say:  "  True,  they  do  not  exactly 
correspond  with  real  life,  but  they  express  tenden- 
cies far  greater  than  any  other.  The  proper  course 
2 


10  PREFACE.  [305 

to  pursue  is  to  work  them  out  to  their  farthest  con- 
sequences ;  and  then,  by  introducing  additional 
considerations,  we  shall  see  how  these  modify  our 
conclusions,  until  finally  we  shall  get  results  which 
will  tally  with  facts."  The  historical  economist,  on 
the  other  hand,  argues  that  the  actual  state  of  affairs 
in  every  particular  industry,  trade,  country,  and  how 
it  came  to  be  so,  is  best  discovered  by  historical  and 
statistical  inquiry — an  inquiry  in  which  the  old  doc- 
trines will  furnish  a  useful  standard  of  comparison, 
and  in  some  cases  suggest  influences  that  have  been 
at  work,  but  in  which  they  will  after  all  play  a  quite 
subordinate  part. 

What  is  most  wanted  at  this  moment  is  that  each 
side  should  frankly  and  ungrudgingly  recognize  the 
right  of  the  other  to  try  the  opposite  method.  No 
doubt,  in  the  heat  of  revolt,  rebels  have  spoken  vio- 
lently, and  have  denounced  the  deductive  method 
and  all  its  works.  This  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at 
when  it  is  remembered  that  the  political  economy 
most  influential  in  England  and  America  during  this 
century  has  been  that  taught  by  McCulloch  and 
Senior.  But  the  orthodox  economist  of  to-day  no 
longer  thinks  that  he  is  in  possession  of  a  body  of 
truths  applicable  to  all  times  and  places  ;  and  he  is 
even  too  anxious  to  point  out  that  he  does  not  claim 
to  give  practical  advice.  The  historian,  therefore, 
will  do  well  to  acknowledge  that  deduction  is  a  de- 
fensible method,  and  to  leave  the  believer  in  abstract 
economics  to  justify  his  argumentation  by  its  re- 
sults. 

But  it  is  time  that  it  should  be  recognized  from  the 
other  side  that,  for  good  or  evil,  there  is  an  increas- 
ing body  of  economic  investigators  who  are  likely  to 


306]  PREFACE.  11 

remain  unmoved  by  all  the  arguments  which,  from 
the  time  of  some  unsettled  questions,  have  been 
used  to  prove  that  deduction  is  the  only  scientific 
method.  They  believe  that  by  historical  and  statis- 
tical inquiry  it  is  possible  for  them  to  arrive  at  a 
knowledge  of  the  economic  life  of  the  past  and  pres- 
ent which  will  be  of  service  to  society.  They  are 
not  content  with  the  concession  that  the  historical 
material  they  gather  may  be  of  use  for  the  "  illustra- 
tion and  verification  of  economic  truth;"  they  be- 
lieve it  has  an  independent  value  of  its  own.  If  they 
are  wise  they  will  neither  patronize  nor  be  patron- 
ized, but  will  ask  for  a  fair  field. 

There  is  one  question,  indeed,  that  is  often  put, 
and  deserves  an  answer  :  Can  historical  and  statis- 
tical inquiry  discover  economic  truth,  economic  laws  9 
This  is  another  illustration  of  the  hold  that  the  Ri- 
cardian  political  economy  has  taken  on  men's  minds. 
For  by  "truth"  is  here  mean*,  unconsciously  per- 
haps, a  number  of  neat  abstract  propositions,  profess- 
ing to  explain  large  bodies  of  phenomena,  such  as 
"  Rent  is  the  excess  of  the  return  of  a  piece  of  land 
above  that  on  the  worst  land  in  cultivation."  Truth 
of  this  sort  the  historical  method  is  not  likely  to  dis- 
cover ;  the  history  of  agriculture  will  help  us  to 
understand  present  agricultural  difficulties,  but  it 
will  scarcely  produce  a  formula  professing  to  be  a 
"  law  of  rent."  But  if  by  " truth"  is  meant  such 
generalizations  about  the  condition  of  things  now 
and  the  direction  in  which  they  are  going,  as  are  of 
practical  value  to  the  politician  or  philanthropist, 
then  historical  inquiry  has  discovered  truth,  and  will 
discover  yet  more. 

LINCOLN  COLLEGE,  OXFORD, 
August  8,  1887. 


THE  EARLY  HISTORY 

OF    THE 

ENGLISH  WOOLLEN  INDUSTRY. 


i. 

'THE   ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  GUILD  SYSTEM. 

The  history  of  English  wool  and  cloth  has  a  two- 
fold interest :  it  explains  the  origin  of  the  wealth  of 
England,  and  it  illustrates,  with  peculiar  clearness, 
the  development  of  industry.  In  the  latter  middle 
ages  wool  was  the  one  important  article  of  export 
from  England,  an  article  of  which  that  country  prac- 
tically enjoyed  the  monopoly,  so  that  its  control 
formed  a  most  powerful  weapon  of  diplomacy,  and 
its  taxation  was  an  easy  resource  for  our  kings.  But 
England  was  not  content,  thus,  to  furnish  Europe 
with  the  raw  material ;  its  government  made  con- 
tinuous and  strenuous  efforts  to  gain  for  it  the  man- 
ufacture also,  and  its  measures  succeeded.  Cloth 
became  "the  basis  of  our  wealth  ; "  1  and  at  the  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  woollen  goods  were  "two- 
thirds  of  England's  exports."  2 

Still  more  interesting  is  the  woollen  industry  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  economist.  Food  and 
clothes  are  the  two  primary  necessaries  of  human 
life,  and  play  a  correspondingly  important  part  in 
social  history.  It  is  significant  that  the  bakers  and 

1  Bishop  Berkeley,  in  1737,  quoted  in  Toynbee,  Industrial  Revolu- 
tion, 46. 

2Davenant,  Of  Gain  in  Trade,  (1699),  47. 


U  English  Woollen  Industry.  [309 

weavers  stand  side  by  side  in  the  earliest  notices  of 
craft  guilds  in  England.1  No  one  who  is  acquainted 
with  mediaeval  legislation  needs  be  reminded  of  the 
care  with  which  the  public  authorities  supervised 
the  sale  of  corn  and  bread.  But  bread  could  only  be 
made  in  comparatively  small  quantities  ;  it  could 
not  be  made  for  a  distant  or  for  a  far-future  market. 
This,  of  course,  was  equally  true  of  all  articles  of 
food,  before  the  creation  of  modern  means  of  rapid 
transit ;  and  since  the  "  division  of  labor  is  limited 
by  the  extent  of  the  market,"2  it  was  not  in  food 
that  any  considerable  manufacturing  development 
could  take  place.  With  clothing  material  it  was  far 
different.  A  necessary,  but  a  necessary  which  would 
"keep,"  it  was  the  very  first  article  for  the  manu- 
facture of  which  a  special  body  of  craftsmen  came 
into  existence.  And  from  the  first,  a  strong  ten- 
dency towards  further  specialization  showed  itself 
among  those  employed  in  the  industry.  Wherever 
the  conditions  were  favorable,  especially  in  the  sup- 
ply of  the  raw  material,  the  manufacture  soon  came 
to  supply  a  more  than  merely  local  demand ;  and 
this  not  only  encouraged  that  division  of  processes 
which  had  been  early  seen  to  be  advantageous,  but 
tended  also  to  create  a  class  of  dealers  as  distin- 
guished from  the  actual  makers. 

To  these  causes  it  was  due  that  the  woollen  man- 
ufacture was  the  first  to  take  the  form  of  the  guild, 
and  the  first  to  break  through  its  limits  ;  that  it 
became  the  most  widely  spread  of  the  "domestic" 
industries,  and  therefore  that  in  which  the  factory 

1  Madox,  History  of  the  Exchequer,  231. 

2  Cf.  J.  S.  Mill.,  Pol.  Econ.  B.  1,  Ch.  viii,  §  6. 


310]  English  Woollen  Industry.  15 

system  gained  its  most  hardly-won  and  signal 
victory. 

We  are  unable  to  trace  the  existence  in  England 
of  a  separate  craft  of  weavers,  further  back  than  the 
early  part  of  the  twelfth  century.1  Before  this  time, 
all  the  cloth  that  a  family  required  was  made  by  the 
members  of  the  family,  doubtless  in  the  winter  even- 
ings, when  there  was  a  forced  cessation  of  agricultural 
labor.  In  France  and  Germany  it  is  on  the  estates 
of  the  monasteries  and  great  nobles  that  we  find  the 
earliest  examples  of  groups  of  men  whose  main  occu- 
pation was  weaving  ;2  and  it  is  not  impossible  that 
the  same  was  the  case  in  England ;  but  of  this  we 
have  no  evidence. 

In  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  however, 
guilds  of  weavers  are  found  established  in  several  of 
the  larger  English  towns.  The  one  Exchequer 
account,  or  Pipe  Roll,  earlier  than  the  reign  of  Henry 
II.,  which  has  been  preserved,  and  which  is  now 
generally  assigned  to  the  thirty-first  year  of  Henry  I., 
records  payments  to  the  King  by  Robert  son  of  Leof- 
stan  on  behalf  of  the  guild  of  weavers  of  London,  by 
the  sheriff  of  Lincolnshire  on  behalf  of  the  guild  of 
weavers  of  Lincoln,  and  by  the  weavers  of  Oxford 
on  behalf  of  their  own  guild.3  The  Pipe  Rolls  of  the 
early  years  of  Henry  II.  shew  that  guilds  of  weavers 
existed  also  in  Winchester,  Huntingdon  and  Notting- 


JNone  of  the  later  crafts,  except  sutores  and  pistores,  are  mentioned 
in  Alfric's  Cdtloquy,  of  the  later  part  of  tenth  century.  (Wright's  AS. 
Vocab.  ed.  Wiilcker,  p.  90);  nor  are  weavers  mentioned  in  Domesday 
Book,  (v.  Abstract  of  Population,  in  Ellis'  Introd.  ii.  511. 

2Schmoller,  Strassburger  Tucker — u.  Weberzunft,  361, 380.  Fagniez. 
Etudes  sur  ^Industrie  a  Paris  au  xiii*  et  au  xiv*  siecle,  3. 

*Rotulum  Magnum  Pipw,  (Record  Comm.  Ed.  1833)  144,  109,  2< 


16  English  Woollen  Industry.  [311 

ham,  and  a  guild  of  fullers  at  Winchester  j1  and  from 
a  writ  of  Henry  III.  we  learn  that  there  was  a  guild 
of  weavers  at  York  also,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.2 
The  payments  to  the  Exchequer  were  annual ;  and, 
for  all  we  know,  the  guilds  may  have  been  in  exist- 
ence and  these  payments  may  have  been  made  for 
some  years  before  1130.  That  the  weavers  were 
deemed  to  be  among  "the  dangerous  classes"  is 
shewn,  not  only  by  the  attacks  of  the  town  magnates 
which  will  be  referred  to  later,  but  also  by  the  curi- 
ous fact  that  scarcely  are  they  mentioned  in  our 
documents  before  they  give  occasion  to  a  council  at 
Oxford  to  condemn  a  heresy  of  which  they  especially 
were  guilty.3 

Brentano's  exaggerations  as  to  the  freedom  of 
action  of  the  craft-guilds  have  disposed  some  later 
writers  to  go  to  the  opposite  extreme,  and  to  repre- 
sent the  guilds  as  mere  instruments,  and  almost  as 
creations,  of  the  public  authorities.4  It  is  indeed 
true  that  the  guilds  needed  royal  authorization.  The 
annual  payment  was  not  merely  a  tax;  it  was  the 
condition  of  their  existence;  and  guilds  which  did 
not  gain  the  king's  sanction  were  amerced  as  "adul- 
terine." This  was  the  case  in  London  in  1180  with 
the  guilds  of  goldsmiths,  pepperers,  butchers  and 

*The  Great  Eolls  of  the  Pipe,  2-4  H.  ii.  (ed.  1844)  39,  90,  153.  For 
later  years,  v.  Indices  of  ed.  of  each  Pipe  Rolls  from  five  to  ten  H.ii. 
by  Pipe  Eoll  Society. 

*  Close  Rolls  (ed.  1833),  i.  421. 

"  Henricus  rex  tenuit  concilium  apud  Oxoniam,  in^uo  damnata 
est  haeresid  texentium,"  Annals  of  Tewkesbury  and  Annals  of  Wor- 
cester. Annales  Monastici,  (Kolls'  Series)  i.  49;  iv.  381. 

4  Brentano,  Essay  on  History  of  Guilds,  §4,  (prefixed  to  English 
Guilds,  Early  Eng.  Text  Soc.),  criticised  in  Ochenkowski,  England's 
Witrthschaftliche  Entwickelung  im  ausgange  des  Mittelalters,  55,  74-9. 


312]  English  Woollen  Industry.  17 

some  others.1  It  is  true,  moreover,  that  in  the  four- 
teenth century  it  became  the  policy  of  the  govern- 
ment to  extend  the  guild  organization  over  the  whole 
country,  and  to  bring  all  craftsmen  together  in 
organized  bodies.  Yet  it  is  clear  that  guilds  came 
into  existence  at  first  quite  voluntarily,  and  that 
this  banding  together  of  the  craftsmen  was  re- 
garded as  somewhat  revolutionary.  In  the  four- 
teenth century,  again,  we  certainly  meet  with  elab- 
orate regulations  as  to  the  action  of  the  guild  author- 
ities, drawn  up  by  parliament  or  municipalities. 
But  in  the  earliest  charters,  such  as  those  granted 
to  the  weavers  of  London  and  York  by  Henry  II., 
the  only  definite  provision  was  that  which  obliged 
all  the  men  of  the  craft,  in  each  particular  district, 
to  belong  to  the  guild.2  The  importance  of  this  obli 
gation  to  join  the  guild — this  Zunft-zwang  as  the 
Germans  call  it — cannot  be  overestimated  ;  it  turned 
what  before  had  been  private  associations  into  organs 
of  the  state,  and  rendered  possible  the  control  of  the 
ivhole  industry  by  the  government  and  the  guild  offi- 
cers.3 But  all  other  rights  of  the  guild,  whatever 
they  may  have  been — and  their  extent  was  warmly 

1  Madox.  Exchequer,  390. 

2"Sciatis  me  concessisse  Telariis  Londoniarum  Gildam  suam,  in 
Londoniis  habendam,  cum  omnibus  libertatibus  quas  habuerunt 
tempore  Regis  Henrici,  avi  mei ;  et  ita  quod  nullus  nisi  per  illos  se 
intromittat  infra  civitatem  de  eo  ministerio,  et  nisi  sit  de  eorum 
Gilda,  neque  in  Sudwerke,  neque  in  aliis  locis  Londoniis  pertinen- 
tibus."  Liber  Custumarum,  33,  (vol.  ii,  of  Munimenta  Gildhallce, 
Rolls'  Series).  In  the  case  of  York,  no  one  was  to  make  cloth  in  the 
county  save  with  the  consent  of  the  weavers  of  that  city.  See  writ 
of  H.  iii.  ordering  the  sheriff  to  enforce  this  rule,  in  Close  Rolls  i.  421. 

3Cf.  Schmoller,  Strass.  Tu.  W.  Zunft.  384-7.  "Von  der  Absicht, 
ein  wichtiges  gewerbliches  Vorrecht  zu  schaffen,  war  in  der  Haupt- 
sache,  jedenfalls  bei  den  Webern,  nicht  die  Rede."  385. 


IS  English  Woollen  Industry.  [313 

disputed  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries, 
— had  grown  up  by  custom,  and  were  confirmed, 
without  being  specified,  by  the  very  recognition  of 
the  guild,  just  as  those  of  municipal  self-government 
were  assented  to  by  the  recognition  of  a  commune. 
The  two  phrases,  ''grant  a  gild"  and  " grant  a 
commune,"1  are  exactly  parallel,  and  point  to  the 
voluntary  and  spontaneous  character  of  the  asso- 
ciation in  each  case. 

The  relations  of  the  guilds  to  the  governing  bodies 
in  the  towns  are  extremely  obscure,  and  have  never 
yet  been  adequately  investigated.  This  much  at 
any  rate  is  certain,  that  at  first  and  for  a  long  period 
the  craftsmen  were  not  citizens  or  burgesses;  that 
the  freemen  of  each  town  formed  a  comparatively 
small  body,  who  watched  the  craft-guilds  with  ex- 
ceeding jealousy,  and  excluded  their  members  from 
all  share  in  municipal  government.  How  these  two 
opposing  bodies  came  into  existence  it  is  difficult  to 
say.  Maurer,  in  dealing  with  similar  facts  abroad, 
explains  the  burgher  oligarchy  as  the  descendants  of 
the  members  of  the  old  mark  community.2  The 
hereditary  possession  of  land,  it  is  readily  seen, 
would  give  an  economic  superiority  to  the  old  fam- 
ilies when  a  class  of  landless  freemen  began  to  grow 
up  in  the  town.  This  writer  has  doubtless  exag- 
gerated the  part  which  the  mark  played  in  social 
development;  yet  the  importance  in  England  of  bur- 
gage  tenure,  and  the  fact  that  the  freedom  of  a  town 
is  often  described  as  attached  to  such  a  tenure,  do 

JEg.  London,  "  concesserunt  civibus  communam  suam  ;"  Niort, 
"  concessimus  quod  burgenses  faciant  communam."  Stubbs,  Select 
Charters,  252,  313. 

8  Geschichte  der  Stadteverfassung  passim.     See  especially  ii.  195. 


314]  English  Woollen  Industry.  19 

seem  to  show  that  it  was  the  possession  of  land 
which  gave  the  old  families  their  superiority.  There 
is  a  significant  entry  in  one  of  the  Exchequer  rolls 
of  John  recording  the  payment  of  a  mark  by  David, 
the  dyer,  of  Carlisle,  in  order  that  the  messuage 
which  he  has  in  Carlisle  may  be  a  burgage,  and  that 
he  may  enjoy  the  same  privileges  as  the  burghers.1 

In  municipal  histories  some  space  has  often  been 
given  to  the  guild  merchant,  the  gilda  mercatoria. 
But  this  has  hitherto  been  regarded  as  exceptional; 
it  has  only  recently  been  shown  that  every  town, 
with  the  doubtful  exception  of  London,  had  a  mer- 
chant guild.2  Now  the  merchant  guild  certainly  in- 
cluded the  more  important  burghers,  even  if  mem- 
bership of  the  guild  and  burghership  were  not  in  all 
cases  synonymous.  It  was  in  the  reigns  of  Henry  I. 
and  Henry  II.  that  the  merchant  guilds  gained  the 
sanction  of  the  government;  and  so  important  did 
they  become  that  the  latter  municipal  organization 
can  be  best  explained  as  due  to  t,he  coalescence  of 
the  merchant  guild  and  the  local  law  court,  the  court 
leet.  But  the  very  raison  d'etre  of  the  merchant 
guild  was  to  secure  for  its  members  a  monopoly  of  the 
trade  of  the  district.3  We  have  here,  then,  another 
cause  of  antagonism  between  the  burgher  aristocracy 
and  the  craftsmen.  Interwoven  with  the  efforts  of 
the  narrow  body  of  burghers  to  keep  in  their  own 
hands  the  government  of  the  town,  are  the  efforts  of 

1  "  David  Tinctor  reddit  compotum  de  i  marca,  Per  sic  quad  Masa- 
gium  sum  quod   habet  in  Kaerleolo  sit  Burgagium,   et  quod  ipse 
habeat    easdem   Libertates   quas    alii    Burgenses    de    Kaerleolo. " 
"Maddox.    Exchequer,  278. 

2  Especially  by  Gross.     (Gilda  Mercatoria)  Gottingen,  1883. 

3  Cf.  Stubbs.     Const.  Hist,  i,  §  131.     (Lib.  ed.  p.  474.) 


20  English  Woollen  Industry.  [315 

the  traders  to  control  the  weavers  in  the  exercise 
of  their  craft,  and  to  secure  for  themselves  the 
monopoly  of  the  sale  of  the  cloth. 

A  great  authority  has  warned  us  not  to  be  too 
hasty  in  supposing  that  the  relations  of  classes  in 
the  English  towns  were  similar  to  those  on  the  con- 
tinent.1 But  abroad,  the  antagonism  between  the 
old  trading  families  and  the  artisan  guilds  is  the 
capital  fact  in  mediaeval  municipal  history;  and  it 
will  therefore  be  necessary  to  enter  with  some  detail 
into  the  evidence  which  seems  to  prove  that  some- 
what the  same  state  of  things  was  to  be  found  in 
England.  Of  much  the  most  importance  are  certain 
entries  in  the  London  Book  of  Customs* — "the  Law 
of  the  Weavers  and  Fullers  of  Winchester,  of  the 
same  at  Marlborough,  of  the  same  at  Oxford,  and  of 
the  same  at  Beverley."  They  are  not  dated,  and 
their  position  between  entries  relating  to  the  twenty- 
sixth  and  twenty-fifth  years  of  Edward  I.  may  be  no 
more  than  accidental.  Their  presence  is  easily  ex- 
plained: in  one  of  its  many  contests  with  the  weav- 
ers and  fullers  the  London  municipal  government 
must  have  thought  it  would  strengthen  its  case  if 
it  were  able  to  refer  to  the  way  in  which  the  crafts- 
men were  treated  elsewhere,  and  must  have  applied 
to  the  magistrates  of  these  four  towns  for  copies  of 
their  rules.  These  rules  represent  the  artisans  as  in 
so  depressed  a  condition  that  they  must  be  assigned 
to  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century;  and  it  is 
to  be  noted  that  we  have  not  to  deal  here  with  royal 
charters,  but  with  records  of  what  the  burgher  aris- 
tocracy thought  their  rights. 

1  Stubbs,  Const.  Hist,  i,  474-5;  iii,  635.     (Lib.  ed.) 

2  60,  130-1.    Eiley,  Introd.  Ixi. 


316]  English  Woollen  Industry.  21 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  us  in  these  "laws"  is 
the  sharpness  of  the  distinction  which  is  drawn  be- 
tween the  craftsman  and  the  freeman,  "  franke 
homme,"  of  the  town.  No  freeman  could  be  accused 
by  a  weaver  or  fuller ;  nor  could  an  artisan  even 
give  evidence  against  one.1  If  a  craftsman  becomes 
so  rich  that  he  wants  to  become  a  freeman,  he  must 
foreswear  his  craft,  get  rid  of  all  his  tools  from  his 
house,  and  then,  when  he  has  satisfied  the  magis- 
trates, he  may  enter  into  the  freedom,  "  la  fraun- 
chise."  2  No  weaver  or  fuller  might  go  outside  the 
town  to  sell  his  own  cloth,  and  so  interfere  with  the 
monopoly  of  the  burghers  ; 3  nor  was  he  allowed  to 
sell  it  to  any  stranger  or  to  any  one  except  a  mer- 
chant of  the  town.4  In  some  places,  doubtless,  the 
weavers  received  yarn  from  merchant-employers  and 
returned  it  to  them  made  up  into  cloth ;  so  in  the 
case  of  Marlborough,  it  is  laid  down  that  no  one 
shall  weave  or  work  save  for  the  good  men  (prudes- 
hommes)  i.  e.  "burgesses  of  the  town."  In  others,  as 
at  Oxford,  the  weaver  worked  up  yarn  of  his  own ; 
but  even  in  this  case  he  must  have  the  consent  of 
the  good  men  before  he  can  carry  on  his  craft.  At 

1  "Ne  nul  franke  homme  ne  puet  estre  atteint  par  teller  ne  par 
fulour  ;  ne  11  ne  poent  tesmoign  porter,"  in  almost  identical  words 
in  each  case. 

2  Winchester,   Marlborough  and  Beverly.    This  is  precisely  the 
same  as  in  Bruges  and  Damme,  and  all  the  towns  of  Flanders  and 
N.  France,  belonging  to  the  House  of  London ;  cf.  Ashley,  James 
and  Philip  'can  Artevelde,  18. 

3  "  Ceo  est  a  savoir,  qe  nul  teller  ne  nul  fuloun  ne  puet  drap  see- 
dtime teindre,  ne  a  nul  marchaundise  hors  de  la  ville  aller"  at 
Winchester  and  Beverly. 

4 "  II  ne  poent  a  nul  forein  lour  draps  vendre,  fors  as  marchauns- 
de  la  cite."  Winchester. 


22  English  Woollen  Industry.  [317 

Maryborough,  the  "law"  goes  so  far  as  to  direct 
that  the  craftsmen  shall  not  possess  any  property 
above  the  value  of  a  penny,  except  what  is  necessary 
in  his  occupation,  and  five  ells  of  cloth  for  his  year's 
clothes.  But  this  is  probably  rather  the  view  of  the 
burghers  as  to  what  should  be  the  case  than  a  rule 
actually  enforced,  and  may  be  compared  with  the 
passage  in  which  Glanvill  declares  that  a  villain  is 
absolutely  incapable  of  holding  any  property  what- 
ever.1 

It  might  be  argued  that  these  entries  represent 
throughout  only  the  ideal  of  the  burgher  oligarchy, 
and  never  corresponded  with  actual  facts.  But  these 
disabilities  of  the  weavers  can  be  illustrated  by  other 
evidence.  As  to  the  necessity  of  obtaining  permis- 
sion of  the  governing  body  of  the  town  to  exercise 
the  craft,  we  find  that  as  late  as  1316  it  was  arranged 
at  High  Wy combe  that  "all  weavers  shal^  give  only 
twelve-pence  yearly  to  the  Gildani — the  two  officers 
of  the  Gild  merchant — for  every  loom,  and  shall 
henceforth  be  free  in  all  things  concerning  the  gild 
of  merchants,  except  Stallage."^  But  stallage  was 
the  right,  or  the  payment  for  the  right,3  of  .having  a 
stall  in  the  market-place,  so  that  it  is  clear  that  the 
merchant  guild  still  tried  to  monopolize  or  control  the 
sale  of  the  cloth.  This  monopoly  is  further  illustrated 
by  an  order  of  the  guild  merchant  of  Leicester  in  1265 
that  "weavers  should  not  be  permitted  to  weave  cloth 
for  the  men  of  other  towns  while  they  had  sufficient 


lDe  Legibus  Angliw,  1. 5,  c.  5  :  quoted  in  Stubbs,  Select  Charters,  162. 
2  Rep.  Hist.  MSS.  Oomm.  1 876, 556.    See  also  Proofs  and  illustrations, 
p.  277,  in  the  forthcoming  work  of  Dr.  Gross,  The  Gild  Merchant. 
3Ducange,  "Stallaguini :  Praretatio  pro  stallis." 


318]  English  Woollen  Industry.  23 

work  to  do  for  the  men  of  Leicester" — at  the  same 
time  fixing  the  rate  per  ell  at  which  they  were  to  be 
paid.1 

Documents  considerably  eariler  exhibit  a  particular 
monopoly,  of  which  I  know  no  later  mention — a 
monopoly  namely  in  the  sale  of  cloths  dyed  in  any 
other  way  than  simply  with  woad.  This  was  carried 
so  far  that  the  merchants  even  prohibited  the  dyers 
from  dyeing  with  anything  else  but  woad.  A  case 
came  before  the  Curia  Regis  in  the  eleventh  year  of 
John,  in  which  the  fullers  and  dyers  of  Lincoln  com- 
plain that  the  Alderman  and  Reeves  of  Lincoln  have 
seized  cloth  belonging  to  them  on  the  ground  that 
they  had  dyed  and  sold  cloth.2  They  claim  liberty  to 
dye  with  what  sort  of  dye  they  please,  as  free  citizens 
of  Lincoln  having  the  same  rights  as  citizens  of 
London.  The  Alderman  and  Reeves  acknowledge 
that  they  have  taken  the  cloth,  but  this  was  because 
it  had  been  dyed  in  disregard  of  the  custom  of  the 
city,  and  of  an  express  prohibition.  The  dyers  have 
only  the  right  of  dyeing  in  woad,  and  the  only  cloth 
they  may  sell  is  such  as  is  woad-dyed  or  else  white. 
The  fullers  likewise,  have  no  right  to  sell  dyed  cloth, 
"  because  they  have  no  community  (of  rights)  with 
the  free  citizens."3  In  the  same  reign,  the  Exche- 
quer rolls  record  the  payment  of  fines  by  "  the  men  " — 

1  Thompson,  Hist,  of  Leicester.     84. 

2Placitorum  Abbreviatio  (ed.  1811)  65. 

3"Alderniannus  et  prepositi  venerunt  et  cognoscunt  quod  ceperimt 
pannos  illorum,  sicut  illos  qui  tincti  sunt  contra  legem.  et  consuetu- 
dinem  civitatis  suae,  et  prohibitionem  eis  f actam.  Quia,  ut  dicunt, 
non  licet  tinctoribus  pannos  suos  proprios  tingere  nisi  tantuin  in 

waido,  vel  illos  vendere  nisi  waido  tinetos  vel  albos Fullonibus 

similiter  non  licet,  quia  non  Jiabent  legem  vel  communiam  cum  liberis 
civibus." 


24  English  Woollen  Industry.  [31 9 

the  governing  body — of  Worcester,  Bedford,  Beverley 
and  other  towns  in  Yorkshire,  Norwich,  Huntingdon,, 
and  Northampton,  the  "burgesses"  of  Gloucester, 
the  men  of  Nottingham,  Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 
Lincoln,  Stamford,  Grimsby,  Barton,  Lafford,  St.. 
Albans,  Berkhampstead  and  Chesterfield,  in  order 
that  they  might  freely  buy  and  sell  dyed  cloth.1 
This  cloth  was  doubtless  chiefly  of  Flemish  manu- 
facture, but  it  is  clear  that  the  ruling  body  intended 
to  use  their  privileges  against  the  craftsmen  if  they 
thought  it  desirable.  It  will  be  noticed  that  Lincoln 
is  among  the  towns  mentioned. 

The  lengths  to  which  the  antagonism  between  the 
burghers  and  the  artisan  guilds  might  go,  was  sig- 
nally shewn  in  London.  We  do  not  know  whether 
London  ever  possessed  a  guild  merchant :  at  any  rate 
in  1191,  by  the  recognition  of  its  commune,  it  obtained 
complete  municipal  self-government.2  This  involved 
the  control  of  industry  by  the  body  of  citizens,  and 
jurisdiction  over  those  engaged  in  it.  In  the  exer- 
cise of  these  powers  the  new  authorities  came  into 
collision  with  the  privileges  of  the  weavers'  guild. 
Accordingly  they  offered  to  make  an  annual  pay- 
ment to  the  Exchequer,  if  the  guild  were  abol- 
ished.3 The  offer  was  accepted,  and  a  charter  was 

1Madox.  Exchequer,  324.  Macpherson,  Annals  of  Commerce,  i.  347, 
says  :  "  There  were  also  dealers  in  Bedford,  etc."  But  the  entry  runs 
"  homines  de  Bedford,"  which  is  not  "men  in  Bedford,"  but  "the 
men  of  Bedford,"  the  burgesses,  the  ruling  body,  whatever  it  may 
have  been.  And  in  one  case  it  is  expressly  "burgenses  Glcecestriee." 

2Stubbs,  Const.  Hist.  i.  704. 

3 Mag.  Rot.  4  John.  Madox,  Exchequer  279.  "Gives  Londoniee 
debent  Ix.  marcas  pro  Gilda  Telaria  delenda,  ita  ut  de  cetero  non 
suscitetur  ;  et  pro  carta  Regis  inde  habenda."  I  have  not  been  able 
to  find  the  charter,  which,  according  to  Herbert,  Livery  Companies, 


320]  English  Woollen  Industry.  25 

issued  in  1199  or  1200  abolishing  the  guild,  and  im- 
posing on  the  citizens  an  annual  payment  of  twenty 
marks  in  the  place  of  the  eighteen  which  the  weavers 
had  been  accustomed  to  give.  Three  years  later  the 
citizens  appear  as  owing  sixty  marks,  possibly  arrears; 
and  either  because  of  failure  on  the  part  of  the  civic 
authorities  to  pay  the  stipulated  amount,  or  because 
John  saw  how  unwise  he  had  been,  the  weavers' 
guild  was  restored  on  the  promise  of  the  craftsmen 
to  pay  the  twenty  marks.  Yet  four  years  later  the 
guild  did  not  feel  itself  quite  out  of  danger ;  and  in 
1223  the  weavers  deposited  their  charter  in  the  ex- 
chequer lest  the  citizens  should  seize  it.1 

The  reign  of  Edward  I.  was,  we  have  been  told, 
a  period  not  so  much  of  creation  as  of  definition  and 
adaptation.2  This  is  as  true  in  industry  as  in  any  of 
the  other  departments  of  national  life.  During  the 
preceding  century  guilds  of  weavers  and  of  other 
craftsmen  had  been  fighting  their  way  into  recogni- 
tion and  importance.  But  the  crMt  guilds  were  not 
merely  (l  friendly  societies  ;  "  they  claimed  to  control 
all  the  processes  of  manufacture,  and  to  exercise 
jurisdiction  in  all  matters  directly  connected  with 
the  craft.  Such  a  claim  the  ruling  bodies  in  the 
various  towns  strenuously  resisted ;  these  were 
powers  they  were  determined  to  keep  in  their  own 

i.  24,  is  cited  at  large  in  the  Inspeximus  of  Charles  II.  But  it  ap- 
pears in  the  list  of  charters  in  the  Liber  Albus  (Munimenta  Gildliallae 
vol.  I.)  134  :  "Alia  charta  ejusdem  Joannis,  quod  Guilda  Telaria  non 
sit  de  cetero  in  civitate  Londonierum,  nee  ullatenus  suscitetur,"  and 
the  copy  of  H.  ii.'s  charter  to  the  weavers  in  the  Liber  Custumarum, 
39,  has  the  joyful  heading  "quse  adnihilata  est  per  chartam  Regis 
Joannis." 

1  Liber  Cusiumarum,  Riley  Introd.  Ixiii. 

2  Stubbs,  Const.  Hist.  ii.  116. 

3 


26  English  Woollen  Industry.  [331 

hands.  The  central  government,  however,  taught 
by  what  was  going  on  abroad,  must  have  seen  that 
overpowerful  municipal  bodies  were  far  more  dan- 
gerous to  the  royal  authority  than  craft  guilds;  thus 
in  London  the  attempts  of  the  mayor  to  elude  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  itinerant  justices,  caused  the  king- 
to  suspend  the  municipal  constitution  for  ten  years.1 
In  the  artisans,  perhaps,  might  be  found  some  coun- 
terpoise to  the  civic  oligarchies.  Hence  the  royal 
influence  was  probably  on  the  side  of  the  craftsmen, 
and  this  may  explain  the  rapidity  with  which  the 
guild  system  became  the  dominant  fact  in  the  indus- 
try of  the  time.2  The  result,  indeed,  was  a  sort  of 
compromise ;  the  municipal  authorities  never  gave 
up  the  claim  to  control  industry,  and  frequently  im- 
posed regulations  upon  particular  trades  ;  but  the 
every-day  regulation  of  processes,  and  the  petty  jur- 
isdiction which  it  involved  were  surrendered  to  the 
guild  officers.  That  this  was  so  we  see  from  what 
happened  in  London  in  1300. 3  A  body  of  men,  called 
burellers,  had  grown  up,  of  whom  not  much  is 
known,  but  part  of  whose  occupation  was  certainly 
that  of  preparing  yarn  for  the  weavers.  They  were, 
therefore,  to  some  extent,  dependent  upon  the  weav- 
ers, and  as  they  had  a  guild  of  their  own,  there 
were  frequent  collisions  between  the  two  bodies.  In 
1300,  the  bailiffs  of  the  weavers  were  summoned 
before  the  mayor  to  answer  the  burellers'  complaints. 
The  proceedings  resulted  in  the  appointment  of  a 

^tubbs,  Const.  Hist.  iii.  616. 

8Ib.  iii,  618.  "  Edward  I.  seems  to  have  encouraged  the  develop- 
ment of  the  guild  jurisprudence,  and  may  have  been  induced  to  do 
so  by  his  hostility  to  the  magnates  of  the  commune." 

'JLiber  Custumaram  121-6. 


323]  English  Woollen  Industry.  27 

sort  of  committee  of  seventeen  persons,  namely :  four 
aldermen,  six  burellers  and  seven  weavers,  to  revise 
certain  of  the  regulations  as  to  the  weavers'  guild. 
A  number  of  ordinances  were  therefore  drawn  up, 
and  apparently  came  into  force — ordinances  which 
recognized  a  very  considerable  power  of  self-govern- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  craft.  The  general  meeting, 
known  as  "the  guild,"  was  to  be  held  annually  ;  but 
besides  that,  weekly  courts  were  to  be  held,  wherein 
were  to  be  tried  all  members  of  the  craft  on  pleas 
touching  their  industry  ;  and  such  pleas  were  in 
future  to  be  withdrawn  from  the  sheriff's  court. l 
The  mayor  was  given  the  right  to  preside  over  this 
weekly  court  if  he  chose,  but  it  would  obviously  be 
difficult  for  him  to  be  present  at  the  courts  of  all  the 
various  guilds  even  if  he  did  choose;  in  his  absence, 
therefore,  his  place  was  to  be  taken  by  good  men  and 
sworn  of  the  guild.2  At  the  same  time,  the  oppor 
tunity  is  taken  to  confirm  the  customs  as  to  appren- 
ticeship which  had  been  growing  up  ;  one  of  the 
clauses  lays  down  that  no  one  is  to  work  as  weaver, 
who  has  not  served  as  apprentice,  and  apprenticeship 
is  to  last  seven  years.3 

In  London  at  this  date — and  the  same  was  prob- 
ably true  in  other  large  towns — the  woollen  industry 
was  divided  into  four  or  five  branches,  the  weavers 
and  burellers,  each  organized  in  a  guild,  the  dyers 
and  fullers  united  in  the  same  guild,  and  the  tailors 


1 123,  Art.  vi. 

2  Art.  iii.  "  Et  si  le  meire  ne  ysoit,  il  deit  assigner  quatre  prodes- 
hommes  du  mester  jurez  .  .  a  tenir  la  Court ;  les  queux  quatre 
soient  chescum  an  remuables  a  la  volunte  du  mester,  et  deyvent 
estre  chescun  an  presentez  au  Meyre." 

3 123.  Art.  xiv. 


28  English  Woollen  Industry.  [323 

or  cissores.  But  they  were  very  conscious  that  they 
had  interests  in  common,  and  they  were  accustomed 
to  act  together  in  matters  affecting  the  whole  in- 
dustry. This  is  illustrated  by  two  documents  of 
1298. l  The  first  is  a  royal  writ  to  the  warden  and 
sheriffs  of  London.  It  sets  forth  that  the  king  has- 
been  informed  by  the  complaint  of  two  London  cit- 
izens belonging  to  the  guild  of  fullers  and  dyers, 
that  whereas  the  old  custom  had  been  that  cloth 
entrusted  to  men  of  that  guild  to  be  fulled,  was* 
fulled  by  the  men  of  the  craft  or  their  servants  by 
treading  it  with  their  feet  in  their  own  houses  in 
the  city,  certain  persons  have  received  cloth  and 
sent  it  out  of  the  city  to  be  fulled,  for  instance,  to 
a  fulling  mill  at  Stratford  ;  and  the  king  orders  that 
right  should  be  done  in  the  matter.  The  offenders- 
were  accordingly  summoned,  and  confessed  their 
fault.  This  being  done,  the  warden  and  sheriffs 
thought  it  advisable  to  bring  together  a  committee 
representing  the  various  crafts  interested,  and  to 
entrust  them  with  the  drawing  up  of  fresh  regu- 
lations. The  body  appointed  was  composed  of  two 
weavers,  two  burellers,  two  dyers  and  two  tailors,, 
which  shows  that  a  new  body  of  craftsmen  had 
come  into  existence,  the  tailors,  who  cut  up  the 
cloth  for  garments  (whence  their  name),  and  doubt- 
less bought  it  for  this  purpose  from  the  weavers  or 
dyers  ;2  and  shows  also  that  the  fullers  and  dyers- 


1  Ib.  127-9. 

2  Mr.  Loftie's  theory  that  the  weavers'  guild  split  into  sections, 
*'of  which  the  tailors  retained  the  ancient  name  telarie,"  (Hist,  of 
London,  i.  169,  n.;  and  London  in  Historic   Towns'  series,  49),   is 
opposed  both  to  etymology  and  historical  evidence.     "Tailor"  is- 
from  F.  tailler,  to  cut;  and  its  common  Latin  form  is  cissor;  thus  in 


324]  English  Woollen  Industry.  29 

were  at  this  time  still  united,  as  they  probably  had 
been  from  the  first.  The  second  document  seems  to 
contain  the  regulations  which  this  committee  drew 
up.  The  first  is  to  the  effect  that,  "whereas  cloth 
which  private  persons  and  strangers  have  given  to 
fullers  and  to  dyers  and  to  weavers  in  London  to 
full,  has  been  sent  outside  the  city' by  these  fullers 
and  dyers  and  weavers  to  be  fulled  at  mills/'  these 
craftsmen  are  no  longer  to  do  so,  and  the  use  of 
mills  in  this  way  is  only  to  be  permitted  to  the 
owners  of  cloth,  or  to  those  who  intend  to  keep  it 
for  their  use.  The  guild  officials  are  to  prevent 
cloth  going  out  at  the  city  gates;  offenders  are  to 
be  heavily  punished,  and  for  the  third  offence  to 
foresware  the  craft.  Some  miscellaneous  regulations 
are  added,  of  which  the  most  important  is  that  "no 
one  of  the  craft  (of  fullers  and  dyers)  shall  receive 
the  workman  or  apprentice  of  another  without  the 
consent  of  his  master."1  The  sharp  distinction  be- 
tween master,  journeyman  and  apprentice  is  often 
described  as  an  essential  characteristic  of  the  guild 


Liber  Albus,  727,  the  heading  is  Articuli  Cissorum,  while  the  text  is 
"  Oe  Taillours  preignent,"  etc.;  while  telarius,  a  weaver,  is  from 
tela,  in  the  sense  of  a  web,  (or  in  late  Latin,  a  piece  of  cloth),  or  in 
the  sense  of  a  loom.  Speaking  of  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Edward 
III.,  Mr.  Loftie  says  that  "the  weavers  are  not  named  at  all." 
Webbers,  however,  do  appear  as  9th  on  the  list  of  Mysteries,  50 
Ed.  III.,  (in  Herbert,  Livery  Companies^  i.  34),  while  Tailors  are 
next  but  one  above  them.  But  it  will  be  seen  later  that  the 
weavers  have  a  continuous  history,  which  will  be  found  down  to 
24  Hy.  VII.,  in  Madox  Forma  Burgi,  191-6.  The  same  phrases  are 
used  throughout,  thus,  "Telarie  Londonice  reddunt  compotum  de 
xx  marcis  pro  Gilda  sua,"  5  John;  "Telarii  Londonm  debent  xx 
marcas  per  annum  pro  Gilda  sua,"  24  Henry  VII. 

1Libt  Gust.  129.    "Derichef  qe  nul  du  mester  receyue  autri  louwer 
ou  aprentiz  en  son  mester,  saunz  la  volunte  de  son  mestre." 


30  English  Woollen  Industry.  [325 

system  ;  but  certainly  it  was  late  in  growing  up, 
and  the  London  fullers  in  this  respect  outstripped 
their  fellows  elsewhere.1  Thus  in  the  earliest  regu- 
lations which  have  been  preserved  of  the  guild  of 
the  fullers  of  Lincoln,  regulations  dating  from  1337, 
the  rules  are  singularly  liberal  as  to  the  admission 
of  new  members.2  Fullers  from  other  towns  may 
have  their  names  put  on  the  roll  on  paying  a  penny 
to  the  wax  (for  candles  on  procession  days) ;  while, 
apparently,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  apprenticeship, 
for  it  is  only  said  that  if  anyone  wishes  to  learn  the 
craft,  no  one  shall  teach  it  to  him  until  he  has  given 
two  pence  to  the  wax.3  Yet  even  in  London  it 
seems  clear,  from  the  first  article  of  the  regulations 
just  quoted,  that  the  boundaries  between  the  func- 
tions of  the  three  crafts  of  fullers,  dyers  and  weavers 
were  not  yet  rigidly  determined. 

During  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  there 
must  have  been  a  very  rapid  increase  in  the  amount 
of  cloth  manufactured  in  England.  This  is  shewn, 


1  Cf.  the  late  development  of   such   distinctions    in  Germany, 
Schmoller  Strassb.  TucJi.  u  Weberzft.  389. 

2  English  Guilds  Ed.  Toulmin  Smith,  [E.  E.  T.  S.  1870:]  179. 

3 One  clause  has  perplexed  the  editor:  "quod  nullus  ejusdem 
officii  ad  perticam  cum  muliere  laboret,  nisi  cum  uxore  magistre  vel 
ancilla  sua  commensal!" — "no  one  of  the  craft  shall  work  at  full- 
ing (pertica  was  the  pole  with  which  the  cloth  was  beaten  in  the 
trough),  with  a  woman,  unless  it  be  with  the  wife  of  the  master,  or 
her  maid  who  sits  at  her  table."  He  asks  "  why  is  he  not  to  work 
in  company  with  an  ordinary  woman?"  Surely  the  intention  was 
to  prevent  the  general  employment  of  female  labor.  The  wife  of 
his  master  or  her  maid  may  lend  a  helping  hand  in  emergencies, 
but  women  are  not  to  be  regularly  employed.  The  small  extent  to 
which  women  were  employed  in  manufactures  under  the  guild 
system  is  one  of  the  characteristics  distinguishing  it  from  the 
domestic  industry  which  followed. 


326]  English  Woollen  Industry.  31 

among  the  evidence,  by  the  increased  importation  of 
woad,  which  was  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  cfyeing 
blue  or  blue-ljlack.  During  the  sixth  and  seventh 
years  of  John,  the  king's  chamberlains  of  London 
are  recorded  to  have  received  less  than  £100  "for 
license  to  bring  woad  into  England  and  sell  it," 
while  in  six  months  in  the  twelfth  year  the  wardens 
of  the  ports  accounted  for  almost  £600,  and  this 
probably  did  not  include  all  the  ports,  for  some  may 
have  been  specially  dealt  with.  However  we  may 
interpret  these  figures,  it  is  clear  that  the  importa- 
tion of  woad  was  already  very  considerable.1 

No  mediaeval  government  contented  itself  with 
leaving  to  local  authorities  and  crafts  the  entire  con- 
trol of  industry.  It  always  attempted  to  impose 
certain  general  conditions  upon  the  whole  of  a 
country;  and  this  would  be  especially  the  case  in  a 
country  like  England,  in  which  from  the  Norman 
conquest  the  central  authority  had  been  peculiarly 
strong,  and  in  which  the  political Svisdom  of  Henry 
II.  had  created  an  effective  administrative  system. 
In  1197  was  issued  the  Assize  of  Measures,  enacting 
that  there  should  be  a  uniformity  of  weights  and 
measures  over  the  whole  country.  But,  while  for 
no  other  commodity  is  the  exact  size  fixed,  the 

1  Madox,  Exchequer  531,  532,  col.  1;  530,  531,  col.  1.  Macpherson, 
Annals  of  Commerce  i.  359,  382,  has  made  use  of  Madox's  figures, 
and  I  have  followed  them  in  supposing  "  de  Assisa  Waisdise  "  and 
"de  Consuetudine  AVaisdiee"  to  mean  the  same  thing.  But  he  is 
mistaken  in  supposing  the  figures  given  for  12  John  to  apply  to  the 
whole  of  one  year.  The  text  is  headed,  "Cornpotus  Custodum 
Portuum  Maris  a  feste  S.  Michselis  anne  xii.  usque  ad  mediam  Quad- 
ragesimam  anni  sequentis  hunc  annum" — the  half  year  from 
Michaelmas  1310  to  Midlent  1311,  falling  within  John's  12th  year. 
Dover  is  either  exempted  or  specially  dealt  with,  the  assize  of  woad 
of  Kent  and  Sussex  being  "  prreter  doure." 


32  English  Woollen  Industry.  [327 

special  importance  of  cloth  is  shewn  by  the  follow- 
ing enactment :  "It  is  ordained  that  woollen  cloths, 
wherever  they  are  made,  shall  be  made  of  the  same 
width,  to  wit:  of  two  ells  within  the  lists,  and  of  the 
same  goodness  in  the  middle  and  sides."  In  each 
county,  city  or  borough,  four  or  six  legal  men  are  to 
be  appointed,  who,  with  the  help  of  the  authorities 
of  each  locality,  are  to  carry  out  this  assize.1  This 
was  to  come  into  effect  "  after  the  fair  of  Mid-Lent 
at  Stamford,"  so  that  that  fair  was  already  of 
national  importance.  The  supervision  of  the  execu- 
tion of  this  ordinance  does  not  seem  to  have  been  at 
once  entrusted  to  a  special  officer,  like  the  aulnager, 
as  has  been  supposed.2  For  we  are  told  some  years 
later,  in  1201,  how  that  the  king's  justices  came  to 
the  fair  of  St.  Botolph's,  intending  to  seize  all  the 
cloth  that  did  not  satisfy  the  assize — whereupon  the 
merchants  remonstrated  so  warmly,  and  made  so 
tempting  an  offer  of  money  to  the  king  that  the 
assize  was  not  enforced.  Yet  the  ordinance  was 
certainly  not  withdrawn  or  entirely  disregarded,  and 
as  it  was  reenacted  in  Magna  Carta  it  must  by  that 
time  have  come  to  be  generally  approved.  In  the 
roll  of  the  fourth  year  of  John  is  recorded  a  fine  paid 
by  men  of  Esseburn  for  stretched  cloth,  and  in 
that  of  13  Henry  III.,  are  mentioned  the  fines 
imposed  on  two  merchants  because  their  cloth  was 
not  of  due  width.3  And,  as  we  have  already  seen,  it 
was  at  any  rate  thought  advisable  by  the  burghers 
of  Gloster  and  the  men  of  Nottingham  to  purchase 

1  Roger  of  Hoveden,  (Roll's  series)  iv.  33. 

2  Macpherson,  i.  462  n. 

3  Maddox,  Exchequer  393,  394,  col.  2. 


328]  English  Woollen  Industry.  33 

special   permission   to   sell   cloth   of    any   width  or 
"  stretchedness."  1 

As  soon  as  on  the  accession  of  Edward  I.  a  strong 
government  had  again  been  established,  the  assize 
was  vigorously  enforced,  and  it  must  soon  have  been 
found  expedient  to  appoint  an  officer  for  that  special 
purpose.  Towards  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Edward  I. 
Perot  le  Tailleur  who  had  "the  aulnage  of  cloth  in 
the  fairs  of  our  realm"  was  removed  for  some  de- 
fault in  his  accounts,  and  in  1298  the  king  commit- 
ted to  Peter  of  Edelmeton  the  custody  of  aulnage 
and  of  the  assize  of  cloth,  both  English  and  foreign, 
sold  throughout  England.2  This  is  the  earliest  docu- 
mentary evidence  of  an  office  which  existed,  until 
the  reign  of  William  III.,  with  an  importance  for  a 
time  increasing  and  afterwards  steadily  diminishing. 
The  long  history  of  the  changes  in  the  regulations 
as  to  width  and  length,  complicated  as  it  is  by  the 
appearance  of  new  materials  and  qualities,  connot  be 
followed  here.  Yet  a  very  significant  change  of 
policy  in  1353  cannot  be  passed  over.  In  a  statute 
of  that  year  it  was  enacted  that,  whereas  foreign 
merchants  are  deterred  from  coming  to  England  be- 
cause they  forfeit  their  cloth  "if  it  be  not  of  assize," 
henceforth  cloth  shall  not  be  forfeited  even  if  it  be 
not  of  the  due  size.  "The  king's  aulnager  shall 
measure  the  cloth  and  mark  the  same,  by  which 
mark  a  man  may  know  how  much  the  cloth  contain- 
eth;  and  of  as  much  as  the  cloth  shall  be  found  less 
than  the  assize,  allowance  or  abatement  shall  be 
made  to  the  buyer."  The  aulnager's  fee  from  the 
seller  is  fixed  at  a  half  -penny  for  a  whole  cloth,  and 


:2.  "Strictitudo,"  16.324. 
2Ib.  538. 


:U  English  Woollen  Industry.  [329 

a  farthing  for  a  half  cloth,  and  nothing  for  a  cloth 
which  is  less.  He  is  to  meddle  only  with  cloth  that 
is  to  be  sold,  and  any  cloth  put  up  to  sale  without 
being  sealed  shall  be  forfeited.1  With  the  growth 
and  complexity  of  the  manufacture,  the  government 
gave  up  the  attempt  to  regulate  the  size  of  cloths  to 
be  sold;  but  it  would  not  give  up  the  attempt  to  en- 
force honest  dealing,  and  to  enable  the  customer  to 
easily  ascertain  for  what  he  was  paying.  There  is  a 
clear  distinction  in  principle  between  enacting  that 
no  goods  shall  be  sold  save  of  a  certain  size  or 
quality,  and  giving  a  public  guarantee  of  the  size  or 
quality  of  certain  goods,  leaving  dealers  to  sell  and 
customers  to  buy  as  they  please.  This  latter  is 
probably  a  task  that  government  could  in  many 
cases  undertake  safely  advantageously,  and  it  will 
be  remembered  that  as  late  as  1776  Adam  Smith 
speaks  with  approbation  of  the  stamp  on  cloth.2 

It  does  not  follow  within  the  scope  of  this  essay  to 
treat  of  the  extent  and  character  of  the  export  of 
wool  from  England.  The  manufacture  of  cloth  had 
grown  up  and  become  exceedingly  prosperous  in 
Flanders  and  the  north  of  France  more  than  a 
century  before  an  independent  body  of  weavers  arose 
in  England.  Arras  and  the  towns  in  its  neighbor- 
hood retained  some  traditions  of  the  old  skill  of  the 
Roman  artisans,  and  northern  France  and  Flanders 

1  27  E.  iii.  st.  1  0.  H.  Statutes  of  the  Realm  I.  330. 

2  Arguing  that  long  apprenticeships  give  us  security  against  in- 
sufficient workmanship,  he  says:  "Quite  different  regulations  are 
necessary  to  prevent  this  abuse.    The  sterling  mark  upon  plate, 
and  the  stamp  upon  linen  and  woollen  cloth,  give  the  purchaser 
much  greater  security  than  any  Statutes  of  Apprenticeship.     He 
generally  looks  at  these,"  but  doesn't  ask  about  apprenticeship. 
Wealth  of  Nations,  Bk.  i.  ch.  10,  p.  2. 


330]  English  Woollen  Industry.  35 

early  became  famous  for  cloth  of  fine  quality  and 
rich  color.1  In  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries 
the  green  and  dark  blue  Flemish  cloth  took  the  place 
of  linen  as  the  dress  of  the  upper  classes  in  Germany.2 
Now  it  was  from  England  alone  that  the  raw  material 
could  be  obtained  in  large  quantities  ;  and  how  great 
the  trade  must  have  been  early  in  the  twelfth  century 
is  shewn  by  a  charming  story  which  a  contemporary 
tells  us.  In  1114  certain  of  the  Canons  of  Laon  set 
out  for  England,  " which  at  that  time  flourished  with 
great  opulence  of  riches,  owing  to  the  peace  and  jus- 
tice which  its  King  Henry  maintained  within  it,"  to 
raise  subscriptions  for  the  rebuilding  of  their  church. 
They  took  ship  at  Wissant ;  "on  the  same  ship  came 
with  us  several  merchants  who  wanted  to  go  from 
Flanders  to  England  to  buy  wool,  and  thought  it 
would  be  safer  to  go  with  us,  bringing  with  them 
more  than  three  hundred  marks  of  silver  in  bags  and 
purses."  In  their  passage  they  were  attacked  by 
pirates,  "whereupon  the  aforesaid  merchants  in 
despair  of  their  lives,  offered  their  bags  and  purses 
with  all  their  money  to  Our  Lady,  and  cast  them  on 
her  shrine,  beseeching  her  pity  with  tears,  promising 
that  if  only  she  saved  their  bodies  from  the  hands  of 
the  pirates,  she  should  keep  all  their  money  for  the 
restoration  of  her  church."  Then  a  wind  arose  and 
scattered  the  enemy.  When  they  got  to  shore,  the 
monks  were  about,  in  charity,  to  give  back  some  of 
the  money  to  the  merchants,  "but  they,  as  soon  as 
they  saw  that  they  had  escaped  death,  forgot  their 
fear,  and  without  our  permission  each  one  took  his 
bag  and  purse,  leaving  nothing  to  Our  Lady  but  idle 

:Schmoller,  T.  u.  W.  Z.    366-7. 
2Ib.  363. 


36  English  Woollen  Industry.  [331 

words  of  thanks.  But  now  let  all  who  give  their 
property  to  God  and  take  it  back  again,  listen  to  the 
revenge,  which  the  just  Judge  her  Son  took  for  His 
Mother.  They  had  journeyed  over  almost  the  whole 
of  England,  and  had  spent  all  their  money  in  buying 
great  quantities  of  wool,  which  they  had  stored  in  a 
great  building  on  the  coast  at  Dover  ;  but  behold  on 
the  night  before  the  day  on  which  they  intended  to 
cross,  the  building  suddenly  took  fire  and  was  burnt 
down  with  the  whole  of  their  wool.  Then,  when 
they  had  lost  all  their  property  and  had  become 
destitute,  they  too  late  repented  of  the  insult  they 
had  offered  to  the  Queen  of  Heaven."1 

The  trade  between  England  and  the  low  countries 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  bodies  of  merchants  who 
governed  the  various  towns,  and  these,  in  order  to 
ensure  their  own  monopoly  and  secure  mutual  pro- 
tection, formed,  certainly  considerably  before  1240,2 
the  "Hanse  of  London."  This  association,  which 
has  been  mistakenly  confused  with  the  Teutonic 
Hanse,  was  probably  earlier  in  its  origin,  and  lasted 
into  the  fifteenth  century.  It  included  seventeen 
towns,  among  them  all  those  in  Flanders  of  any  im- 
portance, and  for  a  time  Chalons,  Rheims,  St.  Quen- 
tin,  Cambray,  Amiens  and  Beauvais.  Even  Paris  is 
said  to  have  been  a  member.3  Apparently  its  mem- 
bers had  to  fear  lest  overbold  craftsmen  should  at- 
tempt to  get  rid  of  middlemen,  and  themselves  buy 

1  Hermann!,  de  Mirac.  S.  Marice  Laudun,  lii,  cc.  4,  5,  in  Migne, 
Patrologia,  tom  156. 

2  When  occurs  the  first  mention  of  it  in  a  charter  of  Bruges, 
Warnko3nig,  Histoire  de  Flandre  trans.  Gheldolf,  ii,  207. 

3  Fagniez,  D  Industrie  a  Paris  19-20,  quoting  a  work  of  Bourque- 
lot  on  the  Fairs  of  Champagne,  which  I  have  not  seen. 


332]  English  Woollen  Industry.  37 

their  materials  or  sell  their  fine  cloth  in  England. 
If  any  such  should  be  found,  say  their  statutes,  he 
is  to  forfeit  all  his  wares,  and  the  same  penalty  is  to 
fall  on  a  member  of  the  hanse  who  does  business 
on  commission  for  a  craftsman.  Artisans — among 
whom  are  specially  mentioned  fullers,  weavers, 
shearers,  and  "  dyers  who  dye  with  their  own  hands 
and  have  blue  nails" — can  indeed  enter  the  hanse, 
but  on  conditions  which  could  very  rarely  be  sat- 
isfied ;  for  they  must  renounce  their  craft,  and  after 
a  year  and  a  day  they  must  get  the  consent  of  their 
own  town  by  paying  to  its  magistrates  such  a  sum 
as  the  latter  may  appoint.1 

Cologne  was  later  than  the  Flemish  towns  in  ob- 
taining manufacturing  and  commercial  importance, 
but  it  was  far  in  advance,  especially  in  weaving,  of 
the  rest  of  Germany.2  How  early  its  merchants  be- 
gan to  visit  England  for  wool  we  cannot  tell ;  but  it 
appears  from  a  letter  of  protection  to  the  men  of 
Cologne  issued  by  Henry  II.,  that  they  had  a  house 
in  London  as  early  as  1157. 3  Richard  granted  them 
permission  to  visit  and  trade  over  the  whole  of  Eng- 
land, especially  at  the  fairs,  and  freed  them  from  the 
payment  of  two  shillings  which  they  were  wont  to 
give  "for  their  Guildhall  in  London" — an  exemp- 


1  Warnkoenig-Gheldolf,  Flandre  ii.  206-211,  506-512.    Cf.  Ashley, 
James  and  Philip  v.  Artevelde,  15-20. 

2  Schmoller,  T.  u.  W.  Z.,  366. 

3Lappenberg,  Urkundliche  GescJiicJite  des  Hansischen  Stalhofes  zu  Lon- 
don, Urk.  2.  It  has  often  been  supposed  that  this  "house,"  or  a  build- 
ing on  the  same  site,  became  the  later  steelyard.  But  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  13th  c.  the  Guildhall  of  the  Cologne  merchants  and  that 
of  the  Teutonic  merchants  were  still  distinct  establishments.  Riley, 
Pref .  to  Liber  Albus,  xcvi. 


38  English  Woollen  Industry.  [333 

tion  which  was  again  granted  by  Henry  III.  in  l^S.1 
Out  of  this  guild  of  merchants  of  Cologne  arose  the 
great  Teutonic  Hanse  :  first  by  the  inclusion  in  the 
guild  of  all  other  German  merchants  who  wished  to 
trade  in  England,  and  afterwards  by  the  rise  of 
Liibeck.  For  Liibeck,  after  vainly  trying  to  enter 
the  Cologne  confederation,  formed  a  hanse  of  its 
own,  to  which  that  of  Cologne  soon  became  subor- 
dinate.2 

Compared  with  Flanders  and  the  great  Rhenish 
cities,  England  was  at  this  time  a  poor  and  backward 
country.  She  manufactured  no  cloth  for  export  ;  a 
great  part  of  her  own  demand  for  cloth — the  whole 
of  that  for  the  finer  qualities — was  satisfied  by  the 
low  countries.  And  even  the  export  itself  of  English 
wool,  which  was  so  essential  to  the  prosperity  of  the 
manufacturing  centres  abroad,  was  wholly  in  the 
hands  of  foreigners — the  Hanse  of  London  and  the 
Teutonic  Hanse. 

We  shall  see  later  how  the  merchants  of  the  Staple 
arose  to  question  this  monopoly  in  the  export  of  wool. 
But  what  seems  first  to  have  occurred  to  the  English 
government  was  the  idea,  that  by  prohibiting  the 
export  of  wool  altogether,  they  might  gain  for  their 
own  country  the  manufacture.  During  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries  the  export  of  wool  was  fre- 
quently for  a  time  forbidden.  Usually,  indeed,  this 
measure  had  for  its  immediate  object  to  force  the 
rulers  of  Flanders  to  satisfy  the  political  demands  of 
the  English  government — notably  in  1336 — to  com- 
pel Flanders  to  abandon  the  French  alliance.3  But 

1  Lappenberg,  Urk.  5,  26.    Cf.  Madox,  Exchequer  285. 

2  See  the  brief  history  of  the  Teutonic  Hanse,  in  the  article  by 
Mr.  Dodge  in  Ency.  Brit. 

3  Ashley,  James  and  Php.  v.  Astevelde,  78-80,  96-7. 


334]  English  Woollen  Industry.  39 

there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  other  consideration 
was  also  frequently  present.  And  this  is  clearly  the 
case  with  the  earliest  instance  of  prohibition — that 
by  the  Oxford  parliament  of  1258,  when  the  barons 
"decreed  that  the  wool  of  the  country  should  be 
worked  up  in  England,  and  should  not  be  sold  to 
foreigners,  and  that  everyone  should  use  woollen 
cloth  made  within  the  country,"  and  lest  people 
should  be  dissatisfied  at  having  to  put  up  with  the 
rough  cloth  of  England,  bidding  them  "  not  to  seek 
over-precious  raiment."  l  Perhaps  we  may  trace  a 
similar  idea  in  what  is  told  us  by  a  chronicler  opposed 
to  Simon  de  Montfort,  how,  that  when  the  piracy  of 
the  sailors  of  the  Cinque  Ports  had  put  an  end  to 
trade,  and  people  began  to  complain,  the  Earl  tried 
to  persuade  them  that  they  could  get  on  very  well 
without  traffic  with  foreigners,  "whereupon  very 
many  seeking  to  please  the  Earl  wore  white  cloth, 
disdaining  to  wear  colored."  2  * 

In  1271  disputes  between  Henry  III.  and  the  ruler 
of  Flanders  led  to  a  renewed  prohibition  of  the  ex- 
port of  wool,  coupled  with  a  prohibition  of  the  im- 
portation of  cloth;3  and  although  the  order  as  to  cloth 
seems  to  have  been  withdrawn,  that  as  to  wool  was 
renewed  by  Edward  I.  in  1274.  But  a  few  months 
later,  peace  was  made  with  the  count  and  the  prohi- 
bition withdrawn.4  The  attempt,  if  such  it  was,  to 
prevent  foreigners  from  using  English  wool,  and  to 
cause  it  to  be  all  worked  up  in  England,  was  prema- 

1  Walter  of  Hemingburgh,  i.  306.     Ed.  Engl.  Hist.  Soc. 

2  Thomas  Wykes,  s.  a.  1264  in  Annales  Monastici  (Rolls,  series),  iv. 
158. 

3  Calendar.  Hot.  Patentium.  (Ed.  1802);  55  H.  iii.  i.  M.  6,  10. 

4  Rymer,  Fcedera.  510,  513. 


40  English  Woollen  Industry.  [335' 

ture.  The  wool  could  be  kept  in  England,  but  the 
small  body  of  English  craftsmen  could  not  meet 
a  demand  so  great  and  sudden.  The  industrial  or- 
ganization of  the  time  already  supplied  them  with 
work  sufficient  to  occupy  their  time,  and  there  was 
no  "reserve  army"  of  half  employed  workmen. 
Moreover  for  the  making  of  the  fine  sorts  of  cloth,  or 
cloth  of  richer  and  more  varied  dyes,  Englishmen 
did  not  yet  possess  the  necessary  skill.  Edward  III. 
saw,  later,  that  if  we  were  to  do  without  Flemish 
cloth  we  must  bring  over  Flemish  workmen. 

II. 

THE  FIKST  IMMIGRATION. 

With  Edward  III.  begins  the  policy  of  encouraging 
the  settlement  within  the  kingdom  of  foreign  cloth- 
makers,  from  whom  English  weavers  and  dyers  could 
learn  the  arts  in  which  they  had  previously  been 
wanting.  That  this  was  the  object  which  the  gov- 
ernment set  before  itself  is  shewn  in  the  earliest 
piece  of  evidence  we  have  that  foreign  weavers  had 
come  into  the  kingdom.  This  is  a  letter  of  protec- 
tion issued  in  1331  to  John  Kempe,  of  Flanders, 
weaver  of  woollen  cloth.  After  reciting  that  Kempe 
had  come  with  certain  servants  and  apprentices  to 
England  for  the  sake  of  exercising  his  craft,  and  in- 
structing and  informing  those  who  wished  to  learn 
it,1  it  announced  that  the  king  had  taken  Kempe  and 
his  workmen  into  his  protection,  and  promised  simi- 
lar letters  to  all  other  men  of  that  craft  as  well  as  to 

1  "Causa  mesteri  sui  inhibi  exercendi  Et  illos  qui  inde  addiscere 
wluerint  instruendi  et  informaiidi,"  Rymer,  Foedera,  ii.  823. 


336]  English  Woollen  Industry.  41 

dyers  and  fullers  who  were  willing  to  come  to  Eng- 
land.    A  letter  of  the  same  kind  as  granted  in  1336 
to  two  weavers  of  Brabant  who  had  settled  at  York, 
the  king  declaring  that  he   "expected  through  their 
industry,  if  they  carried  on  their  occupation  in  Eng- 
land, that  much  advantage  would  result  to  himself 
and  his  subjects;"1  and  another  in  the  next  year  tcv 
15  makers  of  cloth,  who  with  their  laborers  and  ser- 
vants  were   about   to    come   to  England.2     But  the 
government   did  not    content  itself   with   protecting 
occasional  immigrants.     A  complete    declaration    of 
policy  is  presented  by  a  statute  of  1337. 3     It  offers 
protection   to    all   foreign   cloth   workers    who  shall 
come  to  England,  promising  moreover  to  grant  them 
such  franchises  as  may  suffice  them;  it  frees  the  new 
comers  from  all  restrictions  as  to  aulnage — "a  man 
may  make  the  cloths  as  long  and  as  short  as  a  man 
will;"  it  totally  prohibits  the  importation  of  foreign 
cloth,  and  even  the  wearing  of  foreign  cloth  by  any 
man  or  woman,  great  or  small,  the  royal  family  only 
excepted;  and  it  prohibits  the  exportation  of   wool 
until  it  shall  be  otherwise  provided.     The  contempo- 
rary chronicler  is  of  course  right  in  the  immediate 
object  which  he  assigns  to  the  prohibition  of  export, 
"that  the  king  might  the  more  quickly  overcome  the 
pride   of   the   Flemings,    who    respected    woolsacks 
much  more    than  Englishmen."4     And   indeed   Ed- 
ward found  the  order  a  tolerably  effective  means  of 
coercion:  the  misery  which  it  caused  in  Flanders  and 
above  all  in  Ghent  had  the  effect  of  alienating  the 


JIb.  ii.  954. 
2  Ib.  ii.  969. 

:i  Statutes  of  the  Realm  (ed.  1810),  280. 
*  Walsingham,  Ilistoria  Anglicana,  i.  221  (Rolls.  S.) 
4 


42  English  Woollen  Industry.  [337 

people  more  than  ever  from  their  count  and  of  bring- 
ing James  van  Artevelde  to  the  government.1  The 
English  king  was  not  able  to  obtain  at  once  the  open 
support  of  the  Flemings,  but  even  to  gain  their  neu- 
trality he  readily  permitted  wool  to  be  exported  and 
cloth  to  be  imported,  and  to  win  their  favor  was  even 
willing  to  promise  that  goods  marked  with  the  seal  of 
Ghent  should  be  exempt  from  examination  in  the 
English  markets.2  Yet  though  the  immediate  politi- 
cal purpose  had  been  predominant,  it  is  clear  from 
the  very  juxtaposition  of  clauses  in  the  statute  that 
it  was  also  thought  of  as  assisting  the  new  woollen 
manufactures  in  England.3 

The  account  given  of  the  foreign  settlers  by 
Fuller,  the  church  historian,  writing  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  is  among  the  quaintest  passages  in 
his  delightful  book.4  Where  he  gets  all  his  informa- 
tion from  he  does  not  say  ;  probably  most  of  the  de- 
tails are  suggested  by  his  imagination.  But  it  is 
worth  while  to  see  how  the  impulse  given  to  the 
woollen  manufacture  in  the  reign  of  the  third  Ed- 
ward was  regarded  by  a  wise  and  witty  writer  at  a 
time  when  traditions  as  to  the  new-comers  were  still 
living  : 

"  The  King  and  State  began  now  to  grow  sensible  of  the  great 
gain  the  Netherlands  got  by  our  English  wool,  in  memory  whereof 
the  Duke  of  Burgundy  not  long  after  instituted  the  order  of  the 
Golden  Fleece,  wherein  indeed  the  JF7eec0  was  ours,  the  Golden  theirs, 
so  vast  their  emolument  by  the  trade  of  clothing.  Our  king  there- 
fore resolved,  if  possible,  to  reduce  the  trade  to  his  own  country, 


1  Ashley,  James  and  Philip  van  Artevelde,  84,  91. 

2  Ib.  106-7. 

3  Cf.  Smith,  Memoirs  of  Wool  (1747)  i.  25  n. 

4  The  Church  History  of  Britain,  endeavored  by  Thomas  Fuller. 
Ed.  1655,  110-42.    His  own  Italics  are  retained. 


338]  English  Woollen  Industry.  43 

who  as  yet  were  ignorant  of  that  art,  as  knowing  no  more  what 
to  do  with  their  wool  than  the  sheep  that  wear  it,  as  to  any  arti- 
ficial and  curious  drapery,  their  best  cloths  then  being  no  better 
than  friezes,  such  their  coarseness  for  want  of  skill  in  their  making. 
But  soon  after  followed  a  great  alteration,  and  we  shall  enlarge  our- 
selves in  the  manner  thereof. 

"The  intercourse  now  being  great  betwixt  the  English  and  the 
Netherlands  (increased  of  late  since  King  Edward  married  the 
daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Hainault),  unsuspected  Emissaries  were  em- 
ployed by  our  king  into  those  countries,  who  wrought  themselves 
into  familiarity  with  such  Dutch  men  as  were  absolute  masters  of 
their  trade,  but  not  masters  of  themselves,  as  either  journeymen  or 
apprentices.  These  bemoaned  the  slavishness  of  these  poor  serv- 
ants, whom  their  masters  used  rather  like  Heathens  than  Christians, 
yea  rather  like  horses  than  men.  Early  up  and  late  in  bed,  and  all 
day  hard  work  and  harder  fare  (a  few  herrings  and  mouldy  cheese}, 
and  all  to  enrich  the  churls  their  masters  without  any  profit  unto 
themselves. 

But  oh,  how  happy  should  they  be  if  they  would  but  come  over 
into  England,  bringing  their  mystery  with  them,  which  would  pro- 
vide their  welcome  in  all  places.  Here  they  should  feed  on  fat 
beef  and  mutton,  till  nothing  but  their  fulness  should  stint  their 
stomachs,  yea  they  should  feed  on  the  labor  of  their  own  hands, 
enjoying  a  proportionable  profit  of  their  pains  to  themselves. 

' '  Liberty  is  a  lesson  quickly  conned  by  heart,  men  having  a  prin- 
ciple within  themselves  to  prompt  them  in  case  they  forget  it.  Per- 
suaded with  the  promises,  many  Dutch  servants  leave  their  masters 
and  make  over  to  England.  Their  departure  thence  (being  picked 
here  and  there)  made  no  sensible  vacuity,  but  their  meeting  here 
altogether  amounted  to  a  considerable  fulness.  With  themselves 
they  brought  over  their  trade  and  their  tools,  namely  such  as  could 
not  as  yet  be  so  conveniently  made  in  England. 

"Happy  the  yeoman's  house  into  which  one  of  these  Dutch  men 
did  enter,  bringing  industry  and  wealth  along  with  them.  Such 
who  came  in  strangers  within  their  doors,  soon  after  went  out  bride- 
grooms, and  returned  sons-in-law,  having  married  the  daughters  of 
their  landlords  who  first  entertained  them.  Yea,  these  yeomen  in 
whose  houses  they  harboured,  soon  proceeded  gentlemen,  gaining 
great  estates  to  themselves,  arms  and  worship  to  their  estates. 

"The  king  having  gotten  this  treasury  of  foreigners,  thought  not 
fit  to  continue  them  all  in  one  place,  lest  on  discontent  they  might 
embrace  a  general  resolution  to  return,  but  bestowed  them  through- 
out all  the  parts  of  the  land,  that  clothing  thereby  might  be  the 
better  dispersed.  *  *  *  This  new  generation  of  Dutch  was 


44  English  Woollen  Industry.  [339> 

now  sprinkled  everywhere,  so  that  England  (in  relation  I  mean  to- 
her  own  counties)  may  bespeak  these  inmates  in  the  language  of 
the  poet : 

" '  Quoe  regio  in  terris  vestri  non  plena  laboris  ?  '— 

though  generally  (when  left  to  their  own  choice)  they  preferred  a 
maratime  habitation." 

He  then  gives  the  following  view  of  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  industry,  doubtless  as  it  was  in  his  own 

time  : 

/ 

"  East.      Norfolk — Norwich  Fustians. 

Suffolk— Sudbury  Bayes. 

Essex — Colchester  Bayes  and  Serges. 

Kent — Kentish  Broad-cloths. 
"West.     Devonshire  Kirses. 

Gloucestershire,      }     rn   .-, 

Worcestershire,       \      Joth' 

Wales — Welsh  Friezes. 
North.    Westmoreland — Kendal  Cloth. 

Lancashire — Manchester  Cotton. 

Yorkshire — Halifax  Cloths. 
South.     Somersetshire — Taunton  Serges. 

Hampshire,      ) 

Berkshire,        [     Cloth." 

Sussex,  ) 

After  referring  to  the  "heightening  of  the  manu- 
facturer to  a  higher  perfection  "  by  the  Dutch  who 
came  over  under  Elizabeth,  he  concludes  : 

"  But  enough  of  this  subject,  which  let  none  condemn  for  a  de- 
viation from  Church-history  ;  first,  because  it  would  not  grieve  one 
to  go  a  little  out  of  the  way,  if  the  way  be  good,  as  this  degression 
is  for  the  credit  and  profit  of  our  country  ;  secondly,  it  reductively 
belongeth  to  the  Church-history,  seeing  many  poor  people  both 
young  and  old,  formerly  charging  the  parishes  (as  appeared  by  the 
accounts  of  the  Church  officers)  were  hereby  enabled  to  maintain 
themselves." 

An  account  first  printed  by  Misselden  in  1623, 
without  any  other  explanation  of  its  origin  than  that 
it  was  an  exchequer  record  in  an  ancient  manuscript 
of  a  merchant,  professes  to  give  the  amount  of  ex- 


340]  English  Woollen  Industry.  45 

ports  and  imports  in  1354. l  According  to  this,  more 
than  thirty  thousand  sacks  of  wool  were  exported  in 
that  year,  but  also  4774.y  pieces  of  cloth  valued  at 
40  shillings  each,  and  806H  pieces  of  worsted  stuff 
valued  at  16  shillings  and  8  pence  each,  while  among 
the  imports  were  1831  pieces  of  fine  cloth,  each 
valued  at  6  pounds.  The  account  may  be  wholly 
fictitious,  or  may  be  assigned  to  the  wrong  year  ; 
but  if  it  could  be  accepted  as  genuine,  it  would  show 
that  twenty  years  after  the  introduction  of  foreign 
craftsmen  began,  England  exported  large  quantities 
of  cloth,  though  some  of  it  was  probably  in  an  un- 
finished state  and  was  worked  up  abroad.  The 
difference  between  the  value,  per  piece,  of  cloth  im- 
ported, and  of  that  exported,  is  very  striking. 

We  have  seen  that  by  1300,  the  London  weavers' 
guild  had  gained  complete  recognition  of  certain 
powers  of  supervision  and  jurisdiction  over  its  mem- 
bers. But,  once  victorious,  the  process  of  deteriora- 
tion had  set  in  with  them  as  with  all  similar  organi- 
zations of  the  middle  ages  ;  liberties  were  turned 
into  exclusive  privileges  and  were  made  the  means 
of  establishing  a  monopoly. 

In  1321  the  weavers  were  indicted  before  the  jus- 
tices by  the  wards  of  Candlewick  street  (now  Cannon 
street)  and  Walbrook,  neighborhoods  where  the  wea- 
vers chiefly  congregated,  and  were  summarily  fined 
for  two  offences  : —  "  because  by  confederacy  and 
•conspiracy,  in  the  Church  of  S.  Margaret  Pattens, 
they  ordained  among  themselves  that  for  weaving 
each  cloth  they  should  take  sixpence  more  than 
anciently  they  had  been  wont,"  and,  "  because  they 

1  Misselden,  The  Circle  of  Commerce,  119,  copied  in  Macpherson  L, 
553  ;  Smith,  Memoirs  of  Wool,  43. 


46  English  Woollen  Industry.  [341 

seized  the  tools  of  men  of  their  guild  condemned  for 
theft,  against  the  royal  prerogative."  At  the  same 
time  the  weavers  were  summoned  to  answer  by  what 
warrant  they  had  a  guild  and  annually  elected  bail- 
iffs and  other  officers.  They  produced  their  charters, 
which  they  urged  were  a  sufficient  authorization  ;  to 
which  the  king's  sergeant  replied  that  many  of  the 
regulations  they  had  recently  made  were  to  the  in- 
jury of  the  public.  Thereupon  a  jury  was  empanneled, 
which  drew  up  a  long  declaration.  It  was  true,  they 
said,  that  the  weavers  had  a  guild  resting  on  certain 
charters,  and  by  virtue  of  these  charters,  they  had 
the  right  to  elect  bailiffs  annually,  who  were  to  be 
presented  before  the  mayor  and  sworn  to  do  their 
duty,  and  also  the  right  to  hold  their  court  weekly, 
.for  pleas  of  debt,  contract,  agreement  and  petty 
offences  ;  and  for  such  matters  weavers  could  claim 
to  be  tried  by  their  own  court.  If  any  were  behind- 
hand with  his  contribution  to  the  ferm  of  twenty 
marks  paid  by  the  guild  to  the  king,  the  bailiffs 
could  seize  his  loom ;  and  when  quarrels  arose  be- 
tween burellers  and  weavers  about  yarn  furnished 
by  the  former,  they  were  wont  to  be  decided  by  a 
mixed  jury. 

All  these  rights  the  jurors  seem  to  have  thought 
justifiable.  But  there  were  other  regulations,  made 
some  thirty  years  before  this  time,  which  they  de- 
clared were  to  the  injury  of  our  Lord  the  King  and 
his  people — such  as  the  prohibition  to  work  between 
Christmas  and  Candlemas,  or  by  candle  light ;  the 
rule  that  cloth  of  Candlewick  street  should  not  be 
made  in  less  than  four  days,  though  it  was  possible 
to  make  it  in  two  or  three — regulations  which  pre- 
vented as  much  cloth  being  made  as  might  be,  and 


342]  English  Woollen  Industry.  47 

hindered  it  from  becoming  as  cheap  as  it  would 
otherwise  have  been.  But  the  weavers  did  even 
worse  than  this,  "they  admit  no  one  into  their  guild 
without  his  making  a  heavy  payment,  maliciously 
planning  that  the  fewer  the  workmen  the  dearer 
their  labor  may  become.  Whereas,  up  to  thirty 
years  ago  there  were  about  three  hundred  and 
eighty  looms  in  the  craft  within  the  city,  now 
there  are  only  eighty,  because  the  weavers  have 
lessened  the  number  for  their  own  advantage."1 

At  this  point  the  case  was  adjourned,  and  we  are 
left  in  ignorance  as  to  the  result.  However,  enough 
is  given  to  enable  us  to  form  a  picture  of  the  com- 
fortable group  of  weavers  in  Cannon  street,  care- 
fully restricting  their  numbers  and  trying  to  in- 
crease their  profits.  Much  the  same  state  of  things 
doubtless  existed  in  other  large  weaving  centres  ; 
and  these  were  the  conditions  which  the  artisans 
from  the  low  countries  came  to  disturb. 

The  settlement  of  foreign  workmen  in  any  large 
number  seems  to  have  commenced  after  the  act  of 
1337. 2  They  met  with  so  hostile  a  reception  from 
the  London  craftsmen,  who  did  not  refrain  from 
violent  assaults  and  threats  of  death,  that  seven 
years  later  the  government  found  it  necessary  to 
send  a  special  writ  to  the  mayor  and  sheriffs.  They 
were  enjoined  to  cause  it  to  be  proclaimed  that  the 
king  had  taken  the  foreigners  in  London  under  his 
special  protection,  and  they  were  to  imprison  in 
Newgate  all  whom  they  found  disregarding  the 

1  Liber  Custumarum  416-425,  and  Riley's  Preface  Ixvi.    The  plead- 
ings  are  also  given,  with  some  imperfect  lines,  in  Placita  de  Quo 
Warranto  (ed.  1818)  465. 

2  To  judge  from  the  recital  in  the  writ  of  1344.     Fcedera  iii.  23. 


48  English  Woollen  Industry.  [343 

proclamation.  But  if  the  foreigners  were  to  stay 
in  London,  the  wea'vers'  guild  would  be  sure  to  try 
to  make  them  become  members  and  pay  their  due 
contribution  to  the  ferm.  In  1351  "the  poor  weavers 
of  London"  represented  to  the  king  in  Parliament 
that  Henry  II.  had  given  them  a  charter  conferring 
upon  them  a  monopoly  of  their  industry,  in  return 
for  which  they  were  bound  to  pay  twenty  marks 
yearly,  but  that  now,  taking  advantage  of  the  proc- 
lamation of  1337,  foreigners  had  come  into  the  city 
and  were  making  gain,  and  were  free  from  the 
burden  of  contributing  to  the  ferm.  They  pray, 
therefore,  either  that  they  may  have  jurisdiction 
over  the  foreigners,  or  that  they  themselves  may  be 
freed  from  the  ferm.1  The  matter  was  referred  to 
the  exchequer,  where  Mcolas  of  Worsted  appeared 
on  behalf  of  the  London  weavers  and  complained 
that  Giles  Spolmakere,  with  four  other  persons  in 
London,  and  one  in  Southark,  "foreigners  who  are 
not  of  the  gild,"  have  meddled  with  their  industry 
and  made  all  sorts  of  rayed  and  colored  cloth,  and 
yet  will  not  be  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
guild.2  Proceedings,  however,  were  stayed  by  a 
royal  writ  which  Giles  had  just  obtained  and  now 
produced.  It  set  forth  that  the  king  had  promised 
to  protect  the  foreigners  so  long  as  they  paid  what 
they  ought,  and  many  of  them  had  willingly  paid 
their  share  of  the  twenty  marks  as  assessed  by  the 

1  Les  Tylers  (telarii)  priont  que  lour  Chartre  lour  soit  allowe,  isse 
que  les  estraunges  soient  par  eux  justifiez  en  lour  Glide,  ou  autre- 
ment,  gils  puissent  estre  descharges  de  la  dite  ferme  de  vintz 
marez."  Madox,  Firma  Burgi,  284,  n.  col.  2. 

"Faciunt  omnimodos  pannos  radiatos,  et  coloratos,  et  alios 
pannos,  ....  et  se  justiciare  nolunt  per  Telarios  predictos."  Ib. 
285,  col.  2. 


344]  English  Woollen  Industry.  49 

guild  itself ;  and  yet  the  weavers  of  the  guild  kept 
on  trying  to  force  them  to  belong  to  their  guild, 
and  to  come  to  its  courts.1  The  king  therefore 
ordered  that  Giles  and  the  other  foreign  weavers 
should  not  be  molested  because  they  do  not  belong 
to  the  guild  of  weavers  of  London,2  and  that  the 
trial  should  go  no  further. 

Next  year  the  government  went  farther,  and  in 
reply  to  a  petition  addressed  to  the  sovereign  in  Par- 
liament by  the  foreign  weavers,  "the  king did, 

with  the  assent  of  the  prelates,  earls,  barons  and 
other  great  men  assembled  in  this  said  parliament, 
grant  for  himself  and  his  heirs  to  all  and  singular 

foreign  clothworkers who  then  resided  in  his 

kingdom and  would  then  after  come  and  abide 

there  and  follow  their  craft that  they  might 

safely  abide  in  the  realm  under  the  king's  protec- 
tion, and  might  freely  follow  their  craft ;  without 
being  compellable  to  be  members  of  the  gild  of  weav- 
ers of  London,  natives,  or  of  other  cloth  workers  of 
this  realm,  or  to  pay  any  sums  of  money  by  reason 
of  such  gild,  as  appeareth  by  the  parliament  rolls."- 

1  "  Intelexeritnus  quod  licet  ....  portiones  ipsos  de  illis  viginti 
marcis,   quse  per  Telarios  ad  opus  nostrum  annuation  solvunter, 
juxta  assessionem  super  ipsos  operarios  per  dictos  Telarios  impos- 
itam  contingentes,  gratanter  solvissent,  ipsi  tamen    telarii  ipsos 
operarios  entranlos  ad  essendum  de  Gilda  sud  in  civitate  predicta, 
<3t  ad  veniendum  ad  curiam  suam  per  varias  districtiones  compul- 
crunt."     Ib.  28G,  col.  2. 

2  "Vobis  mandamus  quod  ipsos  Egidium  .  .  .  vel  alios  hujusmodi 
operarios  pro  eo  quod  ipsi  de  gilda  dictorum  telariorum  .  .  .  noil 
•existant  .  .  .  non  molestetis."    b.  287,  col.  1. 

3  Recital  in  the  case  of  Cokerage,  10  H.  IV.  in  Madox,  Firma 
Burgi  199.  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  it  on  the  Rolls  of  Parliament, 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  such  an  exemption  was  granted.    In 
the  Calendar  of  Patent  Rolls  is  entered,  under  26  Ed.  III.  (p.  161):  "Am- 


50  English  Woollen  Industry.  [345 

The  grant  of  such  a  privilege  did  not  make  it 
easier  for  the  magistrates  to  keep  the  peace,  and  the 
government  was  again  and  again  obliged  to  issue  or- 
ders that  no  one  shall  molest  the  Flemings,1  or,  since 
attack  provoked  reprisal,  that  Flemings,  Brabanqons 
and  Zealanders  shall  not  bear  arms.2 

How  the  immigration  of  foreign  weavers  affected 
the  organization  of  industry  in  London,  it  seems  im- 
possible accurately  to  determine.  It  probably  has- 
tened that  decay  of  the  guild  organization  which  had 
evidently  set  in  by  the  middle  of  the  following  cen- 
tury. There  are,  however,  three  assertions  which 
may  with  some  confidence  be  made :  First,  that 
though  exempted  by  Edward  III.  from  the  necessity 
of  membership  of  the  London  weavers'  guild,  the  for- 
eign weavers  did  not  remain  without  some  sort  of 
association  among  themselves;  secondly,  that  the  old 
weavers'  guild  was  greatly  weakened  by  the  changes, 
whatever  they  were;  but,  thirdly,  that  it  succeeded 
in  regaining  the  control  of  all  those  exercising  the 
weaving  craft  within  London. 

The  first  is  proved  by  a  petition  presented  to  the 
mayor  and  aldermen  in  the  year  1362  by  the  "Weav- 
ers' alien."3  They  ask  that  "three  good  folk  of  the 
weavers'  alien  may  be  ordained  and  sworn  to  keep 

pise  libertates  pro  operariis  pannoe'  de  partibus  exteris  infra  regnum 
morantibus,"  and  the  weavers'  petitions  of  1406  and  1414  state  that 
"  le  roy  E  le  tierce,  eucountre  les  ditz  libertees  et  Franchises,  a 
1' instance  et  supplication  des  wevers  aliens,  estoit  grauntez  qu'ils 
serroient  exempts  du  dite  gylde,  et  qu'ils  ne  rien  paierent  du  dite 
ferme."—  Rot.  Parl.  iii.  600;  iv.  50. 

1  In  list  of  royal  writs  in  Letter  Book  G,  compiled  between  1353- 
and  1375,  in  Liber  Albus  628,  649. 

2  Ib.  642. 

3  Translated  in  Eiley  Memorials  of  London,  306. 


346]  English  Woollen  Industry.  51 

and  rule  their  trade;"  that  every  alien  who  wishes 
to  work  in  the  city  should  be  obliged  to  present  him- 
self before  these  officers  and  prove  his  capacity,  and 
that  his  wages  should  be  fixed  by  them:  and  that 
the  same  officers  should  decide  in  quarrels  between 
masters  and  men  about  wages,  as  well  as  in  cases  of 
petty  larceny.  Then  come  the  ordinary  guild  regu- 
lations restricting  night  work  and  work  on  holy 
days.  The  proposed  rules  were  sanctioned;  where- 
upon two  Flemings  and  a  Brabanter  were  chosen 
and  sworn  "to  keep  and  oversee  the  articles  afore- 
said and  the  alien  men  of  the  same  trade." 

This  fellowship  or  mystery — it  is  perhaps  too  late 
to  be  called  a  guild — obviously  included  both  Flem- 
ings and  Braban9ons.  But  Flemings  must  certainly 
have  largely  preponderated,  and  therefore  we  may 
with  little  hesitation  identify  it  with  "the  trade  of 
the  weavers  among  the  Flemings"  spoken  of  in  the 
"Articles  of  the  Flemish  weavers  in  London"  four 
years  later.1  They  ask  that  previous  ordinances  may 
remain  in  force  ;  that  weavers  who  cause  affrays  and 
are  fined  by  the  sheriffs  shall  pay  an  additional  fine 
to  their  own  society;2  and  that  the  bailiffs  of  the 
society  shall  not  be  allowed  to  summon  meetings  or 
demand  contributions  without  the  assent  of  twenty- 
four  men  of  the  trade  to  be  chosen  by  the  city  au- 
thorities. Yet  even  though  men  of  Flanders  and  of 
Brabant  were  united  in  the  same  body,  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  jealousy  between  them ;  hence  it  was 
that  in  1370  "the  commonalty  of  the  weavers  among 
the  Flemings  "  petitioned  for  the  renewal  of  a  previ- 

ilb.  331. 

2  "  They  shall  make  fine  to  the  chamber."    The  same  word  is  used 
in  the  document  of  1362  :  "  let  him  pay  to  the  chamber  the  penalty." 


52  English  Woollen  Industry.  [347 

ous  ordinance  of  the  magistrates  which,  for  the 
prevention  of  affrays  between  the  two  races,  had 
ordered  that  "  the  weavers  Flemings  "  should  meet 
for  the  hiring  of  serving-men,  in  the  churchyard  of 
St.  Lawrence  Pountenay  and  "  the  weavers  of  Bra- 
bant," in  the  churchyard  of  Our  Lady  Somersete. 
But  they  did  not  wish  that  there  should  be  two  rival 
organizations,  for  they  asked  also  "that  the  serving- 
men  in  that  trade  should  serve  indifferently  under 
the  weavers  of  either  nation." 

The  weavers'  guild  was  the  earliest,  and  for  a  long 
time,  the  most  influential  of  all  the  artisan  associa- 
tions. But  other  bodies  were  now  entering  into  the 
privileges  which  the  weavers  had  won  for  them,  and 
were  outstripping  them  in  the  race  for  wealth  and 
power.  There  are  abundant  proofs  of  the  lessening 
importance  of  the  London  "  weavercraf t "  in  the 
later  part  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Thus  we  find 
that  as  early  as  1377  they  had  sunk  into  the  ninth 
place  among  the  "  mysteries  ;"  and  that  while  nine 
companies  send  six  members  apiece  to  the  common 
council  they  send  only  four.1  This  change  in  their 
position  was  largely  due  as  will  be  seen  later,  to  the 
rise  of  the  companies  of  traders.  But  it  must  have 
been  hastened  by  the  struggle  with  the  foreign 
weavers,  and  the  refusal  of  the  latter  to  contribute 
to  the  guild.  In  the  eighth  year  of  Edward  IV.  the 
weavers'  guild  was  four  hundred  marks  in  arrears 
with  its  ferm,  but  it  could  pay  nothing  and  got  deeper 
into  debt  till  the  sixteenth  year,  when  it  was  released 
from  the  obligation.  In  the  twenty-fourth  year  of 
Henry  VII.  it  owed  for  nine  years.  And  "the  gild 

1List  in  Herbert,  Livery  Companies  i.  34. 


348]  English  Woollen  Industry.  53 

of  weavers  with  broad  looms  "  —which  is  almost  cer- 
tainly the  same  as  the  old  guild  of  weavers,  was- 
again  in  the  thirty-eighth  year  of  Henry  VIII.  par- 
doned its  arrears  of  ferm  "in  consideration  of  the 
poverty  of  the  said  artificers."1 

Yet  it  is  clear  that,  somehow  or  other,  the  wea- 
vers' guild,  or  "company"  as  it  came  later  to  be 
called,  did  succeed  in  the  end  in  incorporating  the 
foreign  weavers  and  their  descendants.  The  evidence 
on  the  subject  is  very  scanty:  but  we  may  perhaps 
gather  from  the  mention  in  the  Liber  Albus  of  "an 
Arbitration  between  the  weavers  of  Flanders  and 
other  weavers,"  and  of  "an  Indenture  between  wea- 
vers, native  and  foreign,"  that  some  sort  of  agree- 
ment to  this  effect  was  come  to  between  the  old  guild 
and  the  newcomers;  even  if  as  we  see  from  frequent 
petitions  from  the  weavers  under  Henry  IV.,  it  did 
not  go  so  far  as  to  make  the  foreigners  contribute  to 
the  common  funds.2  Certainly  in  the  reign  of  Queen 
Anne  the  weavers'  company  had  the  power  of  com- 
pelling all  weavers  within  London  to  become  mem- 
bers, a  power  which  they  exercised  until  the  present 
century.3 

iJVIadox.  Firma  Burgi,  195-7.  Madox  is  not  sure  that  "the  gild 
of  weavers  with  broad  looms"  is  the  same  as  "the  gild  of  weavers." 
But  neither  the  term  guild  or  firma  would  have  been  used  in  the 
case  of  a  newly  formed  company. 

3  Liber  Albus  725,  726.  The  Col.  Rot.  Pat.  under  3  K.  I.  mentions 
"  an  agreement  between  native  and  foreign  weavers,"  though  this  is 
followed  by  a  confirmation  of  the  liberties  granted  to  foreign  wea- 
vers in  26  Ed.  III.  Unfortunately  these  have  not  yet  been  printed. 

3  Reports  from  Commissioners  on  Munic.  Corporations,  London,  1837, 
208,  210.  Parties  carrying  on  the  trade  of  weavers  in  London  are 
summoned  to  take  up  their  freedom  in  the  company,  the  court  hav- 
ing the  power  by  the  charter  to  compel  them  to  do  so.  Parties 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  city  generally  have  submitted  to  the 


54  English  Woollen  Industry.  [349 

Meanwhile  a  new  manufacture — that  of  worsted 
stuffs — had  grown  up  in  Norfolk  ;  whether  or  no 
connected  with  the  new  settlers  we  cannot  determine. 
In  1328,  Edward  issued  a  letter  patent  on  behalf  of 
the  cloth-workers  in  worsted  in  the  county  of  Nor- 
folk ; 1  and  the  manufacture  was  already  so  extensive 
and  important  that  next  year  a  special  aulnager, 
Kobert  of  Poley,  was  appointed  for  life,  to  inspect 
the  worsted  stuffs  in  the  city  of  Norwich  and  else- 
where in  the  country.2  Robert  of  Poley  kept  his 
office  for  twenty  years,  but,  in  1348,  the  worsted 
weavers  and  merchants  of  Norwich  petitioned  that 
the  parent  should  be  revoked,  and  that  the  super- 
vision of  the  cloth  might  be  entrusted  to  their  own 
officers  ;  a  petition  which  the  royal  council  thought 
fit  to  grant  "  for  the  common  profit  of  all  estates."  3 
But  free  trade,  in  the  sense  of  the  absence  of  regula- 
tion, does  not  always  work  well ;  and  when,  in  1403, 
Norwich  gained  a  new  charter,  giving  it  a  mayor 
and  a  sheriff,  almost  the  first  care  of  the  new  muni- 
cipal authorities  was  to  meet  the  evils  which  had 
arisen.4  In  1410  the  commons  in  parliament  repre- 
sent to  the  king,  on  behalf  of  the  mayor,  sheriffs  and 
commonalty  of  Norwich,  that  "worsteds  have  been 
recently  made  by  the  workers  of  them,  with  deceit 


authority  of  the  court,  but  several  cases  have  occurred  where  it  has 
been  necessary  to  proceed  by  actions  at  law,  in  all  of  which  the 
company  has  been  successful." 

l€ol.  Hot.  Pat.  103.  2  Ed.  III.  "Pro  operariis  paimorun  de  wors- 
teds in  Comitatu  Norff." 

2  Ib.  104.    3  Ed.  III. 

3lb.  156.  22  Ed.  III.  An  abstract  of  the  petition  is  given  in 
"Abridgment  of  the  Records  in  the  Tower,"  by  Sir.  R.  Cotton,  revised 
by  W.  Prynne,  (1657),  71. 

4  Blomefield,  Hist,  of  Norfolk,  (1745),  ii.  88. 


350]  English  Woollen  Industry.  55 

both  in  their  quality  and  in  their  measure,  to  the 
great  scandal  and  hurt  of  the  loyal  merchants  of  the 
city  and  surrounding  country,  to  the  hurt  also  of  the 
lords,  gentry  and  all  other  folk  of  the  realm,  who 
are  wont  to  buy  worsteds  for  their  needs ;  and  to  the 
certain  destruction  of  the  merchants  who  pass  with 
these  worsteds  into  Flanders,  Zealand  and  other 
places  over  the  sea.  For  if  the  foreign  merchants 
decided  to  search  and  measure  all  the  worsted  coming 
from  this  side,  and  to  seize  all  they  found  defective, 
ordering  besides  severe  penalties  for  the  sellers  of 
such  worsteds,  it  would  be  a  great  scandal  and 
reproof  to  this  kingdom — and  the  total  destruction  of 
the  merchants  of  the  city  of  Norwich,  who  trade  in 
nothing  but  worsteds.  That  it  would  please  our 
Lord  the  King  to  consider,  ho\v,  that  the  workers  in 
worsted  have  repaired,  and  continually  do  repair,  to 
that  city  and  commonly  to  a  place  called  the  Worsted- 
Selde  within  the  city."  They  beg,  therefore,  that 
in  future  the  power  of  search  and  aulnage  should  be 
entrusted  to  the  mayor,  sheriffs  and  commonalty,  or 
their  deputies.  Their  prayer  is  granted  ;  henceforth 
no  cloth  is  to  be  sold  before  it  has  been  sealed  as  to 
due  quality  and  size  ;  a  fee  of  a  farthing  is  to  be 
paid  for  each  piece  of  one  sort,  and  a  half -penny  for 
each  piece  of  the  other  sort,  the  money  thus  obtained 
to  go  to  the  repair  of  the  city  walls.1  The  grant  was 
originally  made  only  for  seven  years,  but  afterwards 
renewed.  At  first  the  office  of  "Aulnage  and  Seal" 
was  left  to  two  citizens,  who  were  to  pay  a  yearly 
rent  to  the  corporation  ; 2  but  an  act  of  Parliament 


lRotuli  Parliamentorum  iii.  637. 
2  Blomefield  ii.  91. 


56  English  Woollen  Industry.  [351 

of  1442  ordered  that  six  wardens  should  be  annually 
chosen  to  carry  out  the  inspection.1 

The  increase  of  the  cloth  manufacture  in  England 
had  two  great  results — (1)  an  increasing  differentia- 
tion among  those  engaged  in  the  industry,  a  splitting 
up  into  separate  crafts,  sanctioned  and  maintained 
by  the  public  authorities  ;  and  (2)  the  creation  of  a 
class  of  merchants  and  dealers  in  the  finished  article. 

In  a  list  of  <;the  several  Mysteries"  sending 
representatives  to  the  common  council  of  London  in 
1377,  occur  besides  mercers  and  drapers,  tailors, 
weavers,  tapicers,  fullers,  dyers  and  burellers.2  It 
has  been  seen  above  that  in  1298  the  fullers  and 
dyers  were  still  united  in  one  guild.  In  addition  to 
these,  the  shearmen  or  toncers,  who  finished  the 
cloth  for  sale,  had  apparently  a  separate  society  be- 
fore the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century;3  and  early 
in  the  fifteenth  we  find  mention  of  the  frisers,  or 
makers  of  a  rough  frieze  cloth.4  In  York,  which 
enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  the  manufacture  of  cloth  for 
the  county,  the  division  into  distinct  crafts  had  gone 
as  far  as  in  London.  Thus  in  1415  there  were  guilds 
of  fullers,  tapicers,  toundours  or  shearmen,  wolpak- 
kers  or  wadman,  tailors,  drapers,  lynwevers,  wevers 
of  wollen,  and  mercers.5  In  many  other  towns  the 
craftsmen  engaged  in  the  different  stages  of  manu- 
facture remained  united  in  the  same  organization  ; 
thus  in  Exeter  the  weavers,  tuckers  or  fullers,  and 
shearmen  were  joined  together  in  one  society  through. 

'20  Hy.  VI.  c.  10. 

2Herbert  i.  34. 

3Riley,  Memorials,  247. 

4 Liber  Albus,  723. 

5  List  in  L.  Toulmin  Smith,  York  Mystery  Plays,  xix — xxvii. 


352]  English  Woollen  Industry.  57 

out  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.1 
But  whatever  the  number  of  divisions  may  have  been 
in  any  particular  locality,  the  government  determined 
that  every  craftsman  should  definitely  choose  his  own 
branch  and  adhere  to  it.  An  act  of  1363  ordains 
•'that  artificers,  men  of  mysteries,  shall  each  join 
the  mystery  he  may  choose  between  this  time  and 
next  Candlemas,  and  two  of  each  mystery  shall 
watch  that  no  one  uses  any  other  mystery  than  that 
which  he  has  chosen.  And  justices  shall  be  assigned 
to  enquire  by  process  of  Oyer  and  Terminer,  so  that 
trespassers  shall  be  punished  by  imprisonment  for 
half  a  year,  and  shall  also  pay  a  fine  to  the  king 
according  to  the  offence. "' 

This  was  followed  up  by  special  ordinances  apply- 
ing to  particular  crafts,  such  as  "that  no  dyer  or 
weaver  should  make  any  cloth,"  i.  e.,  finish  it  for 
sale,  and  so  interfere  with  the  monopoly  of  the  shear- 
men.3 We  know  also  that  the  act  was  vigorously 
enforced,  thus  in  1385  Nicolas  Brembre,  the  mayor, 
disfranchised  several  citizens  for  carrying  on  occupa- 
tions to  which  they  had  not  been  brought  up — 
haberdashers  for  acting  as  mercers,  a  tailor  for  acting 
as  a  draper,  and,  what  is  especially  interesting,  a 
weaver  "for  that  he  occupied  drapery"  i.  e.,  had  sold 
cloth  to  the  public.4 

Similar  regulations  had  been  enforced  in  Flanders 
some  seventy  years  before.  That  there  was  not  a 
wider  interval  of  time  between  the  adoption  of  the 
same  policy  in  the  two  countries,  shews  that  Eng- 
land had  been  rapidly  coming  up  to  its  rival.  In 

freeman,  Exeter,  168—170. 
2 Statutes  at  Large  (ed.  1735)  i.  297. 
3  Liber  Albus,  724. 
'Herbert,  i.    30  n. 
5 


58  English  Woollen  Industry.  [353 

both  cases  the  primary  object  was  the  same — to  pro- 
vide for  the  complete  supervision  of  the  processes  of 
production  and  sale.  There  were  probably  other 
and  secondary  objects  in  view — to  secure  for  all 
engaged  in  the  industry  an  equal  opportunity  of 
making  a  livelihood,  and  to  ensure  the  possession 
of  technical  skill  on  the  part  of  producers.  But  the 
necessity  of  control,  lest  goods  should  be  ill-made 
and  the  customer  cheated,  is  the  purpose  set  in  the 
forefront  of  the  regulations.1 

III. 
THE  KISE  OF  A  TRADING  CLASS. 

The  position  of  the  English  cloth  industry,  com- 
pared with  that  of  other  countries,  in  the  second 
half  of  the  fourteenth  century,  was  this:  Like  the 
industry  of  the  Rhine  and  of  northern  France,  it 
was  rapidly  gaining  upon  that  of  the  Netherlands, 
but  it  had  not  yet  surpassed  in  importance  the  man- 
ufactures alike  of  the  Netherlands,  of  France,  and 
of  the  Rhine,  as  it  was  destined  to  do  in  succeeding 
centuries.  The  development,  therefore,  is,  as  we 
might  expect,  exactly  parallel  with  that  of  other 
countries ;  and  of  this  development  the  most  im- 
portant feature  is  the  appearance  of  a  distinct  class 
of  dealers,  of  traders  in  cloth  as  distinguished  from 
makers  of  cloth.  This  is  a  fact  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance. Nowhere  but  in  the  Netherlands  had 
there  been  room  for  the  growth  of  such  a  body 
before  this  time.  There  the  sale  of  cloth  had  long 
been  as  important  to  merchants  as  the  purchase  of 

1  Schmoller,  Strassb.  Tucker  u  Weberzunft,  386. 


354]  English  Woollen  Industry.  59 

wool,    and    both   were    monopolized    by    the    little 
burgher   oligarchies    who  were    united   together   in 
the   Hanse  of   London.     Now   it   is   clear   that   the 
spirit  of   the  guilds  merchant  in  England  was  the 
same   as   that   of    their  models    abroad;    whatever 
trade   there   was    they   would    get   into   their   own 
hands.     It  has  been  shown  above  that  as  early  as 
the  reign  of  Henry  II.  there  was  some  little  trade 
in  dyed  cloths,  and  that  the  ruling  classes  in  the 
towns  attempted  to  secure  a  monopoly  of  it.     Dur- 
ing the  two  centuries,  however,  which  followed,  the 
craftsmen  had  succeeded  in  gaining  the  rights  of 
citizenship,  and  the  exclusive  privileges  of  a  small 
governing    class    had    passed    away.     Any    citizen 
could  now  trade  in  cloth  if  he  wished.     Still  it  was 
not  until  the  period  at  which  we  have  now  arrived 
that   a   special   class  of   cloth   dealers,   or   drapers, 
made   its   appearance.1     There    had    been    so   little 
manufacture  for  any  save  the  immediate  market — 
the  wants  of   the  town  and  neighborhood — that  if 
men  dealt  in  cloth  at  all,  they  dealt  in  it  together 
with   half   a   dozen   other  commodities ;   they  were 
merchants,  and  not  dealers  in  one  particular  article. 
We  are  so  accustomed  now-a-days  to  the  appear- 
ance of  a  new  branch  of  commerce,  entered  upon  by 
men  with  the  command  of  capital,  which  they  are 
ready  to  make  use  of   in   any  profitable  way  that 
presents  itself,  that  the  rise  of  the  cloth  trade  may 
not  seem  to  need  explanation.     But  in  the  fourteenth 

1  Herbert,  Livery  Companies,  1,  233,  says  :  "  The  Sumptuary  Act, 
37  Ed.  III.,  proves  the  'mercers  to  have  sold  in  that  reign  woollen 
cloth.  ...  It  ordains  that  .  .  .  mercers  and  shopkeepers  in  towns 
and  cities  "  shall  keep  due  sortment  thereof."  The  act  does  not 
mention  mercers  at  all;  it  mentions  only  '•  drapers  et  fesours  de 
draps." 


60  English  Woollen  Industry.  [355 

century  there  was  but  little  of  what  may  be  termed 
free  and  disengaged  capital,  ready  to  be  turned  in 
any  profitable  direction.  Hence  the  question  arises, 
in  what  way  precisely  did  this  new  division  of  oc- 
cupations arise.  It  is  antecedently  probable  that 
trade  in  cloth  would  be  engaged  in  chiefly  by  men 
who  were  already  in  some  way  connected  with  the 
industry.  And  of  these,  there  were  two  groups  from 
either  of  which  the  new  body  might  conceivably 
have  arisen — the  wool-dealers  and  the  cloth -finishers, 
It  does  not  appear  that  before  this  time  there  was 
any  very  uniform  system  of  relations  among  the 
various  branches  of  the  cloth  industry.  I  suppose 
that  the  weaver  had  usually  been  the  most  indepen- 
dent ;.  that  he  had  very  generally  bought  the  yarn 
himself,  and  then,  after  weaving  the  cloth,  had  paid 
the  fuller  to  full  and  the  dyer  to  dye  it,  and  had  sold 
the  cloth  himself  to  the  person  who  intended  to  use 
it.  The  user  might  employ  it  in  its  rough  state,  or, 
as  was  often  the  case,  would  take  it  to  the  cloth 
finisher,  the  pareur,1  or,  as  he  is  called  later,  the 
tonsor  or  shearer,  who  sheared  off  the  nap  at  so  much 
the  piece.2  But  the  weaver  did  not  always  occupy 
this  economically  superior  position  ;  sometimes  he 
received  yarn  from  a  customer  or  employer,  and 
gave  back  cloth,  receiving  so  much  per  piece  as  re- 
muneration ;  sometimes  again  the  fuller  bought  the 
cloth  from  the  weaver,  or  paid  the  weaver  for  work- 
ing up  yarn  into  cloth,  and  himself  sold  it  to  the 
public.  Any  of  these  branches,  therefore,  might 

1  The  gilda  parariorum  appears  among  the  adulterine  guilds  in 
1180.    Madox  ExcJiequer  391,  but  is  not  subsequently  mentioned. 
See  Ducange,  s.  vv.  paravia  parator  and  Littr£  s.  v.  pareur. 

2  Instances  in  Rogers,  Hist,  of  Agr.  and  Prices,  iv.  566. 


356]  English  Woollen  Industry.  61 

have  become  the  dominant  one.  But  the  two  men- 
tioned, the  wool-dealers  and  cloth-finishers,  had 
obvious  advantages.  On  the  one  hand,  the  wool 
dealer,  whether  he  merely  bought  the  raw  wool  and 
sold  it  to  those  who  would  make  it  into  yarn,  or 
whether  he  himself  paid  for  its  being  beaten  and 
spun,  and  then  sold  it  to  the  weaver,  was  already  a 
merchant  with  some  command  of  capital  and  accus- 
tomed to  commercial  dealings.  English  dealers  in 
wool  and  other  staple  commodities  were  at  this  time 
becoming  an  important  and  influential  body,  and 
were  beginning  to  contest  with  the  Teutonic  Hanse 
its  monopoly  of  export  from  England.1  It  is  there- 
fore likely  enough  that  such  merchants  would  trade 
in  what  was  practically  a  new  commodity,  the  cloth 
which  was  now  being  supplied  of  better  quality  and 
in  larger  quantity  than  ever  before.  But  whatever 
may  have  been  the  case  in  other  countries,  there  is 
certainly  no  evidence  that  in  England  the  dealers  in 
cloth  came,  to  any  large  extent,  from  among  the 
dealers  in  wool. 

The  other  theory,  that  it  was  the  cloth  finishers 
who  first  ventured  upon  trade,  has  also  antecedent 
probability  in  its  favor.  For  it  was  through  their 
hands  that  the  cloth  last  passed;  instead  of  waiting 
for  a  customer  to  bring  a  piece  of  cloth  to  be  shorn 
or  finished,  they  might  see  the  advantages  to  be  got 
by  buying  the  cloth  from  the  weaver  and  finish- 
ing it  ready  for  the  customer.  As  the  demand  in- 
creased, they  would  need  larger  stocks,  and  some  of 

1  For  the  Merchants  of  the  Staple,  see  Schanz,  Englische  Handels- 
politik  gegen  ende  des  Mittelallers,  i.  329-332.  Williamson's  Foreign 
Commerce  of  England  under  the  Tudors,  (Oxford  "Stanhope  Essay," 
1883),  is  a  useful  abstract  of  Schanz's  very  important  work. 


62  English  Woollen  Industry.  [357 

them  would  probably  soon  give  themselves  up  en- 
tirely to  the  trade.  It  seems  very  likely  that  this  is 
what  took  place  in  Paris  and  in  France  generally. 
There,  apparently,  it  was  the  fullers  who  caused  the 
cloth  to  be  put  through  its  final  processes,  either 
shearing  it  themselves  or  employing  men  who  sheared 
it  for  them;  and  it  was  the  fullers  who  sold  it  to  the 
general  public.  The  term  "draper"  was  at  first  used 
quite  generally  for  any  one  making  or  dealing  in 
cloth,1  but  clearly  in  the  thirteenth  century  it  became 
a  synonym  for  fuller.2  Seen  first  as  rivals  of  the 
weavers  in  the  sale  of  cloth,3  the  fullers  seem  quickly 
to  have  got  it  in  their  own  hands;  until  finally,  in  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  royal  letters  patent 
divided  the  "drapers"  into  two  classes,  manufactur- 
ers and  traders.4 

What  information  we  have  in  England  points  in 
the  same  direction.      Isolated  "drapers"  appear  in 


1  Especially  for  weavers,  see  Statutes  of  Weavers  of  S.  Marcel  r 
1371,  in  Fagniez,  Etudes  sur  V  Industrie  et  la  classe  industrielle  a 
Paris,  au   mii.  et  xw.t  siecle.  (Bibl.  de  l'£cole  des  hautes  eludes, 
1877).    339.     Espec.  §§  21-2.  341— Fagniez' s  work,  useful  for  its  ref- 
erences and  quotations,  has  its  value  to  the  economic  historian  les- 
sened by  his  unhistorical  method  of  quoting  documents  separated 
from  one  another  by  a  century  or  more,  as  if  they  referred  to  the 
same  stage  of  industrial  development.   He  has  also  taken  from  Dep- 
ping  the  phrase  "Eisserands-drapiers,"  for  which  no  authority  is 
given.     Drapers  appear  neither  in  the  ordinances  issued  by  the 
Pr£vots  of  Paris  between  1270  and  1300,  nor  in  Etienne  Boileau's 
Livre  des  Metiers.     So  that  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  a  class 
of  dealers  in  cloth  existed  at  that  date. 

2  Ib.  106  n.  1;  335,  "ordonnances  ancinnement  faictes  sur  le  mes- 
tier  desfoulons  drappiers  de  la  ville  et  terre  St.  Genevieve." 

3Ib.  234. 

4  J362,  according  to  Depping,  "  l&glements  sur  les  Arts  et  MMers  de 
Paris,  113  n.  2. 


[358  English  Woollen  Industry.  63 

the  thirteenth  century;1  but  there  is  no  certain  evi- 
dence of  a  body  of  dealers  in  cloth,  even  in  London, 
before  1364,  the  date  of  the  first  charter  granted  to 
the  Drapers'  company.  The  same  charter  furnishes 
evidence  that  the  drapers  were  still  makers  of  cloth 
i.  e.,  completed  the  final  processes,  including  shear- 
ing; for  the  preamble  complains  that  "dyers,  weav- 
ers and  fullers,  who  used  to  follow  their  own  crafts, 
have  become  makers  of  cloth."2  Moreover  towards 
the  later  part  of  the  next  century,  we  find  the  fullers 
and  shearmen  in  a  position  of  dependence  upon  the 
drapers,3 — paying  a  fee  at  Drapers'  hall  for  each 
apprentice — that  is  easily  explained  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  the  drapers  had  arisen  from  among  them. 
The  fullers  were  incorporated  in  1480,  and  the  shear- 
men had  a  fellowship  and  wardens,  with  certain 
rights  of  supervision;  but  the  great  companies  of 
drapers  and  tailors  were  promised  that  the  shearmen 
should  not  be  incorporated,  and  they  were  not  in- 
corporated till  1508. 4 

This  mention  of  the  close  connection  between  the 
drapers  and  tailors  in  London  suggests  a  piece  of 
circumstantial  evidence  which  is  at  any  rate  curious. 
In  several  towns,  as  in  York  and  Oxford,  the  drapers 
and  tailors  were  united  in  the  same  company;  but  in 


1  "  Pentecost  le  Draper,"  on  1222  Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  9th  Rep.,  1.  b.; 
"tGervase  the  Draper,"  end  of  reign  Hy.  III.,  5th  Rep.,  559;  "Roth- 
ard  le  Draper"  in  1289,  Ib.  326. 

2  Herbert,  Livery  Companies,  i.,  480  ;  the  preamble,  which  is  very 
important,  is  omitted  by  Herbert ;  but  an  abstract  is  given  in  the 
Drapers'  Company  Return,  in  Report  of  Livery  Companies  Commis- 
sion (1884)  ii.,  170. 

3  Herbert,  i.,  426. 

4  Abstracts  of  charters  in  Return  of  the  Clothworkers'  Company 
n  Livery  Companies  Com.  ii.,  674. 


64  English  Woollen  Industry.  [359 

Coventry  the  place  of  the  drapers  is  taken  by  the 
shearmen,  and  the  mystery  play  was  presented  by 
"the  company  of  sheremen  and  tailors."1 

However  we  may  explain  their  origin,  the  drapers 
certainly  formed  powerful  companies  in  London  and 
other  great  towns  towards  the  end  of  the  reign  of 
Edward  III.,  and  in  that  of  Richard  II.  The  London 
company  of  drapers  were  not  long  in  obtaining  im- 
portant rights  of  supervision  over  the  industry  of  the 
capital  and  indeed  of  the  whole  country.  Their 
earliest  charter  had  given  them  a  monopoly  of  the 
retail  sale  of  cloth  in  London  and  its  suburbs  ;  anyone 
not  belonging  to  the  mystery  who  had  cloth  to  sell 
could  indeed  sell  it  in  gross  to  lords  and  commoners 
who  wanted  it  for  their  own  use,  but  they  might 
never  sell  it  retail,  or  even  in  gross  to  merchants  not 
belonging  to  the  Drapers'  company.2  By  the  pur- 
chase of  a  hall  in  1384,  the  company  obtained  an 
administrative  centre  :3  the  fact  that  this  hall  was  in 
St.  Swithin's  lane  shews  how  close  their  connection 
still  was  with  the  weavers  of  Cannon  street.  Indeed, 
during  the  next  century  the  old  quarter  of  the  work- 
ing weavers  came  to  be  occupied  by  dealers  :  in 
London  Lickpenny,  the  best-known  ballad  of  Lydgate, 
a  countryman  describes  how 

"Then  went  I  forth  by  London  stone; 
Throughout  all  Canwyke  street ; 
Drapers  much  cloth  me  offered  anone."4 

1  Eboracum  (1788)  i.,  222  ;  Records  of  Oxford,  331;  The  Pageant  of 
the  Company  of  Sheremen  and  Taylors,  Sharp,  (1817). 

2  The  translation  in  Herbert,  i.,  480  is  meaningless.     The  clause 
runs:  "Que  nul  que  eit  drap'  a  vendre  en  la  dite  cite,  ou  en  les 
suburbs,  ne  les  vende  forsque  as  drapers  enfranchiez  en  la  dite 
mestier  de  draperie,  s'il  ne  soit  en  gros  as  seigneurs,  et  autres  du 
commune,  qi  les  voillent  achater  pour  lour  oeps  demesne,  et  nemie 
a  rataille." 

3  Liv  Comp.  Com.  ii.,  173. 

4  Minor  Poems  of  Lydgate,  ed.  Halliwell,  Percy  Soc.  106. 


.360]  English  Woollen  Industry.  65 

An  important  characteristic  of  mediaeval  life  was 
the  great  annual  fair,  held  usually  outside  the  walls 
of  towns,  on  the  lands  of  great  lords,  or  ecclesiastical 
bodies,  who  derived  no  small  part  of  their  income 
from  the  fee  paid  by  each  dealer  who  set  up  a  booth. 
There  were  three  of  these  in  the  suburbs  of  London ; 
at  Westminster,  belonging  to  the  Abbot,  at  Smith- 
field,  to  the  Prior  of  St.  Bartholomew,  and  Our  Lady's 
fair  at  Southwark,  belonging  to  the  Prior  of  St.  Mary 
Overy.  Of  these  the  first  was  the  most  important 
and  lasted  thirty  days,  while  those  of  Smithfield  and 
Southwark  lasted  but  three.  Cloth  now  became  the 
chief  article  sold  at  these  gatherings  ;  the  fair  of  St. 
Bartholomew  was  especially  known  as  the  Cloth  Fair. 
Early  in  the  fifteenth  century  thfc  Drapers  and  Mer- 
chant Taylors'  companies  obtained  the  right  to  search 
all  the  cloth  exposed  for  sale  and  to  mark  it  accord- 
ing to  its  size.1  The  annual  search  at  Westminster 
seems  to  have  soon  ceased  :  but  down  to  1737,  long 
after  the  conditions  of  industry  had  altogether 
changed,  the  wardens  attended  year  after  year  at 
Smithfield  and  Southwark  with  "the  Company's 
standard."2 

The  earliest  accounts  in  the  possession  of  the  com- 
pany, those  of  1415,  shew  that  it  was  already  a 
powerful  body,  numbering,  as  it  did  more  than  100 
members3 — by  which  must  be  understood  master 
drapers  only,  and  not  journeymen  or  apprentices.  By 
this  time,  however,  a  considerable  number  of  drapers 
had  arisen  in  other  towns  ;  and,  both  for  the  sale  of 
their  cloth  to  the  people  of  London,  as  well  as  for  its 


1  Herbert  1.,  427. 

2  Lit).  Comp.  C.  173. 
*  Ib. 


66  English  Woollen  Industry.  [361 

easier  export  to  foreign  countries,  these  began  to  re- 
sort to  the  capital.  They  could  not  fail  to  come  into- 
collision  with  the  monopoly  of  the  London  drapers, 
and  it  was  necessary  for  the  government  and  the 
municipal  authorities  to  devise  some  way  out  of  the 
difficulty.  The  plan  they  hit  upon  was  the  establish- 
ment of  Blackwell,  or  as  it  was  originally  called 
Bakewell  hall,  which  was  destined  to  be  of  the 
utmost  importance  to  the  English  woollen  industry 
for  four  centuries.  This  was  an  old  hall  with  a  con- 
siderable piece  of  ground  around  it,  in  Basinghall 
street ;  it  had  originally  belonged  to  the  Basings,  had 
been  occupied  by  a  certain  Thomas  Bakewell  in  the 
reign  of  Edward  III.,  and  was  now,  in  1397,  pur- 
chased by  the  mayor  and  commonalty  of  London 
and  turned  into  a  market  for  country  drapers.1  With 
the  sanction  of  the  government,  the  mayor  or  alder- 
men and  commonalty  issued  in  1398  regulations  to- 
the  following  effect :  Country  drapers  were  to  house, 
shew,  and  sell  their  cloth  only  at  Blackwell  hall ; 
the  sale  was  to  be  carried  on  weekly  between  noon 
on  Thursday  and  noon  on  Saturday :  and  merchants — 
among  whom  aliens,  i.  e.  foreigners,  are  specially 
mentioned — are  not  to  buy  from  them  except  at  the 
hall  and  within  the  times  appointed  :  the  penalty  for 
the  breach  of  these  rules  being  the  forfeiture  of  the 
cloth  in  all  cases.2  In  order  that  the  regulations 
should  be  obeyed,  the  common  council  in  1405  em- 
powered the  Drapers'  company  to  appoint  a  keeper 
of  the  hall  every  year,  a  power  that  was  exercised  at 


1  Stowe,  Survey  of  London,  first  ed.  1598,  227-9. 

Ordinances  of  Bakwelle  halle,   trans,   in  Riley,  Memorials  of 
London,  550. 


362]  English  Woollen  Industry.  67 

any  rate  as  late  as  1526. T  Although  it  is  not  stated 
in  the  ordinances,  it  is  made  clear  by  a  statute  of 
Henry  IV.  that  the  object  of  these  regulations  was 
to  prevent  the  country  drapers  from  dealing  directly 
with  the  customers  of  the  London  drapers,  and  selling 
their  cloth  to  them  in  detail.  All  the  trading  in 
Black  well  hall  apparently  was  wholesale.  But  the 
London  drapers  had  met  with  so  much  support  from 
the  government  hitherto,  that  they  thought  they 
might  venture  to  go  farther,  and  force  the  country 
drapers  to  sell  only  to  themselves.  To  permit  this 
was  to  give  the  London  drapers  a  monopoly  of  the 
cloth  trade  of  the  kingdom,  and  to  enable  them  to 
demand  what  price  they  pleased ;  and  therefore, 
Parliament,  which  had  not  yet  given  up  the  task  of 
securing  fair  prices  and  justice  to  manufacturers  and 
consumers  as  well  as  to  dealers,  interfered,  and  by 
an  act  of  1405-6,  it  was  ordained  that  "drapers  and 
sellers  of  cloth,  like  all  other  merchants,  shall  be  free 
to  sell  their  cloth  in  gross  to  all  the  king's  liege 
people."2 

The  growth  within  England  of  a  great  cloth  manu- 
facture brought  with  it  of  necessity  a  complete 
change  in  the  character  of  English  trade,  and  in  the 
commercial  relations  of  this  country.  Up  to  this  time 
she  had  exported  wool  and  imported  cloth;  now  she 
begins  to  export  cloth  and  to  limit  and  finally  under 
Elizabeth  to  prohibit  altogether  the  export  of  wool. 
The  history  of  the  export  of  cloth  is  closely  associated 
with  that  of  the  Society  of  Merchant  Adventurers, 


1  Liv.  Comp.  O.  173. 

2  7  Hy.  IV.   c.  9.  Statutes  of  Realm  ii.  153.    For  the  acts,  the 
whole  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  the  translation 
which  is  of  later  date,  and  uses  later  terms,  cannot  be  relied  upon. 


68  English  Woollen  Industry.  [363 

the  parent  of  all  the  later  trading  companies  which 
won  for  England  her  commercial  supremacy.  It  is 
not  necessary  here  to  enter  in  detail  into  their 
story,  especially  since  it  has  been  carefully  worked 
out  by  Schanz.1  It  need  only  be  understood  that 
they  derived  their  names  from  their  adventuring  on 
trade  in  new  directions  with  new  commodities;  that 
they  were  never  tied  down  to  one  or  a  few  places 
like  the  Merchants  of  the  Staple,  and  that  their  or- 
ganization was  of  the  freer  and  more  modern  charac- 
ter of  a  chartered  company  instead  of  resembling 
that  of  a  guild.  It  was  not  only  in  the  cloth  industry 
that  the  second  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  had  seen 
the  appearance  of  a  class  of  large  traders:  the  mercers, 
originally  pedlers  of  small  wares,  had  become  mer- 
chants, trading  principally  in  silk,  the  pepperers  had 
become  grocers,  i.  e.,  engrossers  or  wholesale  dealers 
in  spices.  The  sermon-writer  Armstrong  looks  back 
in  1519  to  the  time  "before  the  getting  of  the  narrow 
sea  and  Calais,"  on  to  a  golden  age:  "there  were  no 
such  sort  of  buyers  and  sellers  of  all  things  as  now 
is  *  *  *  *  then  were  not  mercers,  grocers,  drapers, 
nor  such  occupations  named."2  These  three  trades 
had  as  early  as  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Edward  III. 
risen  to  be  the  first  among  the  London  companies;  in 
other  towns  they  occupied  a  similar  position;  and  it 
was  from  members  of  these  three  trades  that  the 
body  of  Merchant  Adventurers  arose  towards  the  end 
of  the  century.  At  first  the  Merchant  Adventurers 
were  mostly  mercers,  and  their  connection  with  the 

1  Englische  Handelspolitik  i.  332  Seq. 

2  Pauli,    Drei    VolkswirthschaftlicJie    Denkschriften    aus    der    Zeit 
Ileinrichs    VIII.    (Abh.    d.    K.    Gesellsch.    d.    Wissenschftn,    Got- 
tingen,   1878),  44,   45. 


364]  English  Woollen  Industry.  69 

London  Mercers'  Company  was  closer  than  with  any 
other  body.  But  soon,  if  not  from  the  first,  cloth  be- 
came the  chief  article  in  which  they  traded.  This 
was  so  much  the  case  that  when  in  1601  the  secre- 
tary of  the  society  wrote  its  history,  he  described  it 
as  actually  originating  in  the  intention  of  English- 
men to  export  the  fine  cloth  beginning  to  be  made  in 
their  country.  His  description  of  the  company  is 
worth  quoting:  "It  consisteth  of  a  great  number  of 
wealthy  and  well  experimented  merchants,  dwelling 
in  diverse  great  cities,  maritime  towns  and  other 
parts  of  the  realm,  to  wit:  London,  York,  Norwich, 
Exeter,  Ipswich,  Newcastle,  Hull,  etc.  These  men, 
of  old  time,  linked  and  bound  themselves  together  in 
company  for  the  exercise  of  merchandise  and  seafare, 
trading  in  cloth,  kersie  and  all  other,  as  well  English 
as  foreign  commodities  vendible  abroad."1 

In  the  next  thirty  years  they  created  a  consider- 
able trade  with  France,  Spain  and  Italy.  But  the 
chief  interest  of  their  history  turns  on  the  struggle 
between  the  English  and  the  Flemish  cloth  industry. 
The  "  staple  town"  of  the  Merchants  of  the  Staple 
had  been  Bruges,  so  that  it  was  natural  that  the 
Merchant  Adventurers  should  at  first  make  it  their 
centre  also.  But  Bruges  was  one  of  the  three  great 
cloth-making  towns  of  Flanders — Ghent,  Bruges, 
Ypres — and  every  sort  of  difficulty  was  thrown  in 
the  way  of  the  English  traders.  The  Merchant  Ad- 
venturers in  consequence,  gradually  removed  to  Ant- 
werp in  Brabant,2  where  there  was  no  considerable 
cloth  manufacture.  They  were  favored  by  political 


1  John  Wheeler,  A  Treatise  of  Commerce,  (1601)  10,  19. 

2  Schanz  i.  9,  442. 


70  English  Woollen  Industry.  [365 

events;  the  murder  of  John,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  in 
1419,  led  to  a  close  alliance  of  the  Burgundian  house 
with  England  until  1434.  But  by  that  time  the  great 
success  of  the  Merchant  Adventurers  had  disabused 
the  Flemings  of  the  idea  that  English  competition 
would  not  injure  them  if  only  English  merchants 
were  forced  into  an  adjoining  province.  The  Bur- 
gundian princes  were  in  the  moods  to  listen  to  the 
complaints  of  their  subjects,  especially  as  they  were 
already  beginning  the  attempt  to  unite  their  Nether- 
land  provinces  more  closely  together,  and  could  not 
be  blind  to  the  disastrous  consequences  of  the  de- 
struction of  Flemish  industry.  Accordingly  in  1434 
the  importation  of  English  cloth  into  the  Netherlands 
was  prohibited  entirely.1  The  English  government 
replied  by  prohibiting  the  export  of  English  wool. 
And  although  during  the  last  century  new  sources  of 
wool  supply  had  arisen — notably,  in  Spain — such  a 
measure  was  able  seriously  to  embarrass  the  Flemish 
manufacturer.2  On  the  other  hand  it  was  opposed  to 
the  interest  of  the  landed  class  in  England — the 
growers  of  wool,  and  of  the  Merchants  of  the  Staple— 
the  exporters  of  wool.  Hence  it  was  difficult  for 
either  the  English  or  the  Burgundian  government  to 
follow  a  consistent  policy,  and  the  varying  necessities 


1  75.443.  • 

2  The  author  of  the  Libel  of  English  Policy,  written  in  1436,  is 
doubtless  right  when  he  says  to  the  Flemings  : 

"  The  grete  substance  of  your  clothe,  at  the  fulle,  Ye  wot  ye  make 
hit  of  our  Englische  woole,"  and  of  Spanish  wool. 

"  Hit  is  of  lytelle  valeue,  trust  unto  me,  wyth  Englische  wolle 
but  if  it  menged  be."  Political  Poems,  Ed.  Wright,  Rolls'  Series,  ii. 
]61-2.  For  proof  of  the  superiority  of  English  to  Spanish  wool  as 
late  as  1438  and  1441,  Macpherson,  i.  654-5.  See  also  references  in 
Hildebrand,  Jalirb.  fur  Nationalokonomie,  vi.  199,  n.  54. 


366]  English  Woollen  Industry.  71 

of  York  and  Lancaster  or  of  the  Burgimdian  rulers 
in  their  hostility  to  France,  led  to  temporary  relaxa- 
tions on  either  side.  But  in  1496  England  was 
successful,  and  by  the  Intercursus  Magnus,  Henry 
VII.  gained  the  free  entry  of  English  cloth  into  the 
Netherlands.  The  result,  hastened  by  the  religious 
troubles  of  the  Netherlands,  and  by  the  renewed  im- 
migration of  foreign  weavers  under  Elizabeth,  was 
the  destruction  of  the  Flemish  industry,  and  the  rise 
of  the  English  cloth  trade  to  this  unique  importance 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 


IV. 

THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  DOMESTIC  SYSTEM. 

For  the  history  of  industry  during  the  first  sixty 
or  seventy  years  of  the  fifteenth  century,  we  have 
singularly  little  evidence.  Yet  during  that  period  a 
complete  change  was  taking  place  in  the  whole  char- 
acter and  conditions  of  manufacture.  The  guild 
system  was  dying  and  the  domestic  system  was 
taking  its  place  ;  a  change  which  can  only  be  com- 
pared in  its  far  reaching  consequences  to  the  over- 
throw, during  the  present  century,  of  the  domestic 
system  itself  by  the  strength  of  machinery  and  great 
capital. 

So  entirely  does  a  prevailing  method  of  industrial 
organization  take  possession  of  men's  minds,  that 
the  very  term  "domestic  system,"  which  was  famil- 
iar enough  in  the  early  part  of  this  century,  has 
become  strange,  and  may  require  explanation.  But, 
in  order  clearly  to  indicate  the  nature  of  the  domes- 
tic system  and  of  the  transition  to  a  new  order  of 


72  English  Woollen  Industry.  [367 

things,  it  will  be  necessary  to  leave  for  a  time  the 
direct  narrative  of  industrial  facts,  and  to  enter  upon 
rather  more  general  considerations. 

Recent  economic  historians  have  traced  four  stages 
in  the  development  of  industry — stages  through  which 
all  parts  of  industrial  society  have  passed  or  are 
passing — and  it  is  now  generally  the  custom  to 
describe  these  as  the  family  system,  the  guild  system, 
the  domestic  system  and  the  factory  system.1  In  the 
first,  the  work  was  carried  on  by  the  members  of  a 
household  for  the  use  of  that  household.  Whether 
the  household  were  that  of  the  villain,  or  that  of  the 
great  noble  or  ecclesiastic,  did  not  alter  the  essential 
character  of  the  relations  thus  created,  which  was, 
that  men  did  not  work  to  meet  an  outside  demand  ; 
there  was  no  sale.  - 

In  the  second  stage,  industry  was  carried  on  by 
small  masters  employing  two  or  three  men  (distin- 
guished later  as  journeymen  and  apprentices).  The 
masters  very  often  bought  the  materials  and  sold 
the  finished  goods,  i.  e.,  he  was  a  shopkeeper  as  well 
as  an  artisan.  But  even  where  the  craftsmen  re- 
ceived the  goods  to  be  worked  up  from  a  customer, 
and  was  paid  so  much  per  piece  for  his  work — as  was 
probably  usually  the  case  with  fullers  and  shearmen— 
even  then  he  had  to  deal  either  with  craftsmen  in 
much  the  same  position  as  himself,  or  with  persons 
who  intended  themselves  to  use  the  commodity  on 
which  his  labor  was  spent.  There  was  a  market, 
i.  e., there  was  a  demand  from  persons  outside  the 
family,  but  it  was  small  and  comparatively  stable. 


1  Thun,  Die  Industrie  am  Niederrhein  ii.  246 ;  Held,  Zwei  Sucker 
zur  Socialen  Geschichte  England*  541,  seq. 


368]  English  Woollen  Industry.  73 

In  the  third  stage,  which,  in  England,  occupies 
the  period  from  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  to  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  many  of  the  terms 
remained  the  same.  There  were  still  small  master- 
artisans,  with  journeymen  and  apprentices ;  the  work 
was  still  carried  on  in  the  master's  or  the  journey- 
man's own  house,  and  the  craftsmen  were  personally 
free  as  to  their  daily  actions.  But  the  master  had 
lost  his  economic  independence,  and  no  longer  acted 
as  a  shop-keeper  or  merchant.  He  often  received 
the  raw  material  from,  and  always  gave  up  the  fin- 
ished goods  to  a  merchant,  factor  or  middle-man  of 
some  sort,  who  took  the  risk  of  the  fluctuating 
demands  of  that  greater  market,  which  had  now 
come  into  existence. 

In  the  fourth,  the  workmen  are  gathered  together 
in  great  masses,  usually  in  one  building,  under  the 
immediate  control  of  a  capitalist  employer.  Tech- 
nical skill  is  now  far  less  important  than  capital ; 
the  workman  has  completely  lost  his  industrial  in- 
dependence, and  the  market  is  increasingly  wider 
and  more  fluctuating. 

These  stages  must  not  be  regarded  as  rigidly  dis- 
tinct, any  number  of  intermediate  arrangements 
were  possible  and  are  to  be  found.  Nor  are  the  terms 
which  are  used  to  distinguish  the  four  stages  any- 
thing more  than  convenient  expressions.  For  in- 
stance, so  large  a  proportion  of  manufacture  was 
organized  in  the  guild  system,  that  that  term  may  be 
fairly  used  to  describe  the  industry  from  the  middle 
of  the  twelfth  to  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
But,  in  some  occupations,  while  there  was  a  sufficient 
demand  to  induce  men  to  give  up  their  time  entirely 
to  a  particular  sort  of  labor,  there  could  never  be  a 
6 


74  English  Woollen  Industry.  [369 

demand  sufficient  to  call  into  existence  a  body  of 
such  craftsmen  in  a  particular  district,  large  enough 
to  form  a  guild.1  Thus,  most  villages  had  black- 
smiths, but  only  in  the  largest  towns  could  there  be 
a  blacksmiths'  guild.  Probably  in  the  woollen  indus- 
try, isolated  weavers  and  other  craftsmen  maintained 
themselves  throughout  this  period  in  out-of-the-way 
places,  without  belonging  to  any  organization  ;  and 
this,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  which  the  town  guilds 
made  in  England,  as  in  other  countries,  to  prevent 
the  exercise  of  their  craft  in  the  country  districts.2 
In  these  cases,  the  individual  craftsman  would  be 
without  the  support  and  control  of  the  guild,  but  the 
essential  characteristics  of  his  position  were  the  same 
as  that  of  the  guild  members.  His  capital  was  very 
small ;  he  dealt  directly  with  the  customer ;  there 
was  no  social  gulf  between  himself  and  the  two  or 
three  men  or  boys  he  employed.3  It  must  be  noticed 
also,  that  even  when  a  particular  organization  of 
industry  is  dominant,  there  often  exists  side  by  side 
with  it,  arrangements  belonging  to  an  earlier  type. 
Thus  to-day,  the  overwhelmingly  larger  part  of  the 
staple  products  of  England  are  made  in  factories, 
mills,  or  " works."  Yet  here  and  there  are  still 
found  men  " working  for  themselves"  and  dealing 

1  Even  in  such  a  town  as  Colchester,  there  were  in  1305  only  eight 
(master?)  weavers,  six  fullers  and  three  dyers.    Kogers,  Six  Centu- 
ries of  Work  and  Wages,  121 . 

2  Thus  the  York  weavers  had  a  monopoly  for  the  county  ;  those 
of  Nottingham  for  ten  leagues  around ;  those  of  London  in  places 
pertaining  to  London,  a  phrase  wide  enough  since  Henry  I.'s  char- 
ter to  cover  Middlesex. 

3  Hence  it  might  be  well  to  follow  those  German  writers  who 
have  used  the  term  Handwerk  and  to  speak  of  Handecraft-system, 
but  this  might  lead  to  confusion  with  the  state  of  things  which 
followed. 


370]  English  Woollen  Industry.  75 

directly  with  the  customer,  just  as  in  the  fourteenth 
century.  It  is  still  more  frequently  the  case  that 
men  work  in  their  own  homes,  but  "for  some  shop;" 
and  here  the  conditions  are  in  the  main  those  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  But  these  are  survivals,  and 
with  the  invention  of  machinery  displacing  skill, 
and  the  increased  cheapness  of  carriage  which  favors 
the  larger  centres,  will  tend  to  disappear.  Similarly 
we  find,  in  the  previous  period,  that  though  the  do- 
mestic system  became  the  prevailing  one  in  England's 
great  industry — the  manufacture  of  cloth — and  to  a 
lesser  degree  in  all  the  other  important  manufac- 
tures, the  guild  system,  under  the  later  names  of 
crafts,  mysteries  and  companies,  or  as  part  of  the 
law  of  municipal  corporations,  still  lingered  in  the 
towns.  But  it  was  moribund,  or  where  active,  ac- 
tive only  for  evil. 

We  may  conjecture  that  a  two-fold  process  went 
on  in  the  fifteenth  century,  (1)  that  in  the  towns,  the 
guilds  or  companies  became  small  close  corporations 
and  lost  control  over  the  industry;  (2)  that  the  in- 
dustry spread  from  the  towns  into  the  country,  and 
that  there  a  new  class  of  men  called  clothiers  or 
clothmakers  arose,  commanding  an  amount  of  capital 
great  relatively  to  previous  conditions,  and  bringing 
into  dependence  upon  themselves  comparatively  large 
numbers  of  workpeople.1 

To  take  the  first  of  these  points:  (1.)  The  guild  sys- 
tem could  only  retain  its  vigor  so  long  as  it  opened  a 
career  to  all  industrious  craftsmen,  so  long  as  it  en- 


1  Cf .  similar  development  on  the  lower  Ehine,  in  Thun  i.  16-18 ; 
and  for  complaints  of  the  extension  of  industry  to  the  rural  districts 
as  late  as  1775,  Schmoller,  Zur  GescJtichte  der  Kleingewerbe  in  Deutsch- 
land,  15. 


76  Encjlisli  Woollen  Industry.  [371 

abled  the  average  journeyman  to  rise  in  due  course 
to  masterhood,  and  himself  employ  his  couple  of 
journeymen  and  apprentice.  But  in  the  later  middle 
ages  there  was  a  strong  tendency  for  the  masters  to 
become  a  close  corporation  of  privileged  families, 
into  which  the  entrance  of  the  journeyman  was  ren- 
dered difficult  by  heavy  fees  and  burdensome  condi- 
tions. When  the  journeymen  are  found  forming 
separate  societies  and  the  masters  anxious  to  suppress 
the  new  bodies,  it  is  clear  that  the  journeymen  could 
no  longer  have  felt  that  the  old  guilds  protected  their 
interests  as  well  as  those  of  the  masters.  Such  separ- 
ate organizations  are  found  in  several  crafts  at  the 
end  of  the  fourteenth  and  beginning  of  the  fifteenth 
century.1  It  is  perhaps  significant  that  the  earliest 
example  of  such  divergence  of  interests  is  found  in 
1350  among  the  shearmen;  for  an  ordinance  issued 
by  the  guild  of  shearers  in  that  year  complains  that 
when  a  dispute  arises  between  a  master  and  his  man 
"  such  man  has  been  wont  to  go  to  all  the  men  within 
the  city  of  the  same  trade,  and  then  by  covin  and 
conspiracy  between  them  made,  they  would  order 
that  no  one  among  them  should  work  or  serve  hi& 
master  until  the  said  master  and  his  servant  had 
come  to  an  agreement."2  This  adds  some  probability 
to  the  suggestion  already  made  that  the  class  of 
traders  known  as  drapers  arose  in  the  main  from 
among  this  craft  of  shearmen  ;  masters  already  stand- 
ing in  such  a  position  of  social  superiority  to  their 
men,  would  be  likely  enough  to  turn  their  attention 
to  trade.  We  have,  however,  more  direct  evidence, 


Memorials  of  London,  495,  543,  609,  653.     Cf.  Brentano, 
Essay  in  Toulmin  Smith,  English  Gilds,  cxlv-cxlviii. 
2Ib.  247. 


372]  English  Woollen  Industry.  77 

of  the  transformation  of  the  craft-guilds  into  close 
corporations  in  the  series  of  statutes  with  which  the 
government  endeavored,  though  in  vain,  to  prevent 
the  change.    The  first  of  these  was  passed  as  early  as 
15  Henry  VI.  (1436-7)  :l  "whereas  the  masters,  war- 
dens and   people  of  several   gilds,   fraternities   and 
other  companies  incorporate,  oftentimes,  by  colour  of 
rule   and   governance,  and  other  terms   in   general 
made  to  them,  granted  by  charters  and  letters  patent 
of  the  king's  progenitors,  make  among  themselves 
many  unlawful  and  unreasonable  ordinances,  as  well 
of  such  things  whereof  the  punishment  cognizance 
and  correction  only  pertaineth  to  the  king,  lords  of 
franchises  and  other  persons,  as  also  of  things  which 
often   of   confederacy  are   made  for  their  singular 
profit  and  common  damage  to  the  people,  they  are  to 
bring  all  their  charters  and  patents  before  Michael- 
mas to  be  registered  before  the  justices  in  the  country 
and  the  chief  governors  of  towns.     And  in  future 
they  are  not  to  make  any  ordinances  not  previously 
approved  of  by  the  authorities,  and  recorded  by  them, 
to  be  afterwards  revoked  if  found  unreasonable." 
This  statute  was  renewed  in  1503-4  (19  Henry  VII.) 
with  the  significant  change  that  the  power  of  control 
was  given  not  to  the  town  magistrates,  who  probably 
were  themselves  interested,  and  could  not  be  trusted, 
but  to  the  chancellor  and  chief  justices.     Both  these 
enactments  are  expressed  in  such  general  terms  that 
if  they  stood  alone  we  might  remain  uncertain  as  to 
the  evils  against  which  they  were  directed.     But  the 
act  of  Henry  VII.   is  appealed  to  in  a  later  statute, 


^Statutes  of  the  Realm,  ii.  298. 


78  English  Woollen  Industry.  [373 

that  of  22  Henry  VIII.  c.  4.  (1530), '  which  goes  on  to 
declare  that  since  that  time,  and  "contrary  to  the 
meaning  of  the  act  aforesaid,"  certain  wardens  and 
fellowships  have  demanded  heavy  fees  from  appren- 
tices, ranging  from  three  shillings  and  four  pence  to 
forty  shillings,  "after  their  own  sinister  minds,  and 
to  the  great  hurt  of  the  king's  true  subjects  putting 
their  child  to  be  prentice."  Henceforth,  it  is  enacted, 
they  shall  not  take  more  than  two  shillings  and  six 
pence,  "for  the  entry  of  any  prentice  into  the  said 
fellowship,"  nor  more  than  three  shillings  and  four 
pence  "for  his  entry  when  his  years  and  term  is 
expired. ' '  But  these  < <  good  and  wholesome  statutes ' ' 
were  "defrauded  and  deluded"  by  a  new  devise; 
the  wardens  "causing  divers  prentices  or  young  men 
immediately  after  their  years  be  expired,  ere  they  be 
made  free  of  their  occupation,  to  be  sworn  upon  the 
Holy  Evangelist  at  their  first  entry  that  they ....  will 
not  set  up  nor  open  any  shop,  house  or  cellar,  nor 
occupy  as  freemen,  without  the  assent  and  license  of 
the  master  wardens  and  fellowships  of  their  occupa- 
tions, upon  pain  of  forfeiting  their  freedom."2  So 
that  six  years  later  it  was  enacted  that  no  such  oath 
should  be  imposed,  and  no  payments  enacted  beyond 
those  previously  fixed.  But  this  measure  was  as 
unsuccessful  as  those  which  preceded  it.  It  became 
increasingly  difficult  for  a  poor  man  not  connected 
by  birth  or  marriage  with  a  company  to  become  a 
master  craftsman,  and  all  men  of  any  energy  of 
character  would  try  to  leave  the  towns  and  carry  on 
their  occupations  under  freer  conditions. 


'Ib.  iii.  321. 

2 28  Henry  VIII.  c.  5.     Statutes  iii.  654. 


374]  English  Woollen  Industry.  79 

Still  the  guilds  or  companies  might  in  England,  as 
in  Germany  and  France,  have  continued  to  exert 
very  considerable  influence  in  their  own  neighbor- 
hoods, and  might  have  delayed  and  hampered  the 
growth  of  industry  in  rural  districts.  But  they  were 
reduced  well  nigh  to  impotence  by  the  confiscation 
of  their  estates,on  pretence  of  superstitious  uses,  by 
the  ministers  of  Edward  VI.,1  a  fate  from  which 
only  the  London  companies  were  able  to  escape.  The 
guilds  had  been  the  friendly  societies  of  the  middle 
ages,  and  the  proceeds  of  their  estates  had  been 
spent  largely  in  payments  to  sick  members,  in  por- 
tioning their  daughters,  apprenticing  their  sons  pen- 
sioning their  widows  and  the  like.  Robbed  of  their 
funds  the  guilds  could  no  longer  fulfill  one  half  of 
their  previous  functions:  the  very  real  benefits  which 
the  fully  free  members  enjoyed;  the  occasional  as- 
sistance which  even  the  journeymen  sometimes  prob- 
ably obtained,  could  no  longer  be  looked  for.  Asso- 
ciations which  had  lost  the  power  to  benefit,  were 
not  likely  to  be  able  to  exercise  with  any  force  their 
powers  of  coercion. 

(2)  It  is  when  we  turn  to  the  industrial  conditions 
which  took  the  place  of  the  guild  system,  and  to  the 
agricultural  changes  with  which  the  transition  was 
accompanied,  that  we  begin  to  understand  how  great 
a  part  the  woollen  manufacture  has  played  in  Eng- 


1  1  Edward  VI.,  c.  4.  Statutes  iv.  24.  Attention  has  been  called  to 
this  by  Kogers,  Hist,  of  Agric.,  iv.  5.  Six  Centuries  347  :  who,  how- 
ever, does  not  seem  to  attach  sufficient  weight  to  the  consideration 
that  the  benefits  derived  from  the  guild  estates  were  at  this  time 
probably  almost  monopolized  by  small  groups  of  families.  It  must 
be  noticed  that  we  do  not  know  the  actual  course  and  results  of  the 
confiscation  in  any  particular  district ;  evidence  on  the  subject  must 
be  in  existence,  but  I  believe  it  has  never  been  printed. 


80  English  Woollen  Industry.  [375 

lish  social  history.  For  the  extraordinary  and  rapid 
success  of  the  industry  brought  about  not  only  the 
downfall  of  the  guild  organization,  but  also  a  far- 
reaching  change  in  English  agriculture.  Now  that 
there  was  a  constant  and  increasing  demand  for 
wool,  it  became  the  interest  of  the  landowners  to 
raise  sheep  rather  than  to  grow  corn,  especially  as 
the  great  increase  in  the  cost  of  labor  since  the 
Black  Death  had  already  made  tillage  unremunerative. 
The  writers  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  modern 
historians  following  them,  have  dwelt  on  the  far- 
reaching  consequences  of  the  introduction  of  pasture 
farming,  the  superfluity  of  laborers,  the  amalga- 
mation of  farms,  the  increase  of  rents,  the  disposses- 
sion of  customary  tenants.1  What  we  are  here  spec- 
ially concerned  with  is  the  fact  that  the  development 
of  the  cloth  industry  helped  partially  to  alleviate  the 
evils  it  had  itself  caused,  by  giving  employment  to 
those  whom  the  agricultural  changes  deprived  of 
work.  Indeed,  the  wealthy  graziers  were  themselves 
very  commonly  clothiers  also,  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury ;  the  wool  grown  upon  their  own  land,  they 
employed  men  and  women  of  the  neighborhood  to 
make  into  cloth,  and  then  sold  it  to  the  London  dra- 
pers or  dealers.2  And  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 

1  See  especially  More's  Utopia  and  Latimer's  Sermons.    A  catena 
of  quotations  from  the  16th  c.  writers  is  given  in  Schanz,  i.  466  seq. 
Of  modern  writers,  see  espec,  Nasse,  Agric.  Community  of  Middle 
Ages',  Ochenkowskig,  England's  Wirtliscliaftlclie  Entuickelung .   35  seq. ; 
Cunningham,  Growth  of  English  Industry  and  Commerce,  b.  iv.,  c.  2. 

2  Thus  the  French  Herald  is  made  to  say,  in  the  Debate  between 
the  Heralds,  by  the  Englishman  John  Coke,  secretary  to  the  com- 
pany of  Merchant  Adventures  :     "In  England  your  clothiers  dwell 

n  great  farms  abroad  in  the  country,  where,  as  well  they  make 
cloth  and  keep  husbandry,  as  also  grass  and  feed,  sheep  and  cattle." 
Debat  des  Herauts  d'armes,  (pub.  Socie'te'  des  anciens  textes  Fran- 
caises,  1877)  p.  105.  See  also  quotations  in  Schanz,  606. 


376]  English  Woollen  Industry.  81 

where  peasant  proprietorship  and  small  farming  did 
maintain  their  ground,  this  was  largely  due  to  the 
domestic  industry  which  supplemented  the  profits  of 
agriculture.1 

Of  the  early  history  of  the  domestic  industry,  we 
have  no  information  ;  when  it  is  first  noticed  in  pub- 
lic documents,  it  seems  to  be  already  widely  spread 
over  the  country.  The  central  figure  to  be  studied 
in  the  new  organization  of  labor  is  the  clothier. 
He  buys  the  wool,  causes  it  to  be  spun,  woven,  fulled, 
and  dyed,  pays  the  artisans  for  each  stage  in  the 
manufacture,  and  sells  the  finished  commodity  to 
the  drapers.  Much  confusion  has  been  introduced 
into  the  subject  by  the  lax  use  of  terms  by  all  writers 
since  the  sixteenth  century.  Familiar  themselves 
with  the  action  of  "clothiers,"  they  have  used  that 
term  in  treating  of  previous  periods  for  anyone  who 
had  to  do  with  cloth,  mixing  together  weavers, 
cloth  finishers,  drapers  and  clothiers,  without  hesita- 
tion. But  just  as  there  is  no  evidence  of  a  body  of 
traders  before  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
so  there  is  no  evidence  of  a  class  of  capitalist  manu- 
facturers 'till  towards  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century.2  For  the  new  clothiers  were  not  primarily 
concerned  with  one  branch  of  the  manufacture,  they 
were  not  artisans  who  bought  cloth  in  an  unfinished 
state,  or  dealers  who  bought  it  finished,  they  arranged 
for  every  stage  of  the  manufacture  ;  and,  though 


1  Cf.  Toynbee,  Industrial  Revolution,  65. 

2  This  is  probably  true  for  France  and  Germany  also.    Schmoller 
^Tucher-u-Weberzunft   411),  refers  to  the  regulations  of  1308,    at 
Amiens,  as  showing  the  dependence  as  early  as  that  date,  of  spin- 
ners, weavers,  dyers  and  fullers  upon  drapers.      But  the  drapers 
or  clothiers  are  not  mentioned  in  that  document,  in  which,  indeed, 
there  is  nothing  to  show  that  such  a  class  then  existed. 


82  English  Woollen  Industry.  [377 

the  actual  amount  of  capital  which  many  of  them 
could  command  must  have  been  small,  they  certainly 
occupied  the  position  of  capitalists  in  relation  to  the 
artisans,  whom  they  employed  in  large  numbers,  and 
to  whom  they  gave  work  as  they  chose. 

The  altered  conditions  are  clearly  enough  indicated 
in  the  statutes  passed  to  deal  with  certain  evils,  on 
the  part  of  the  clothiers  a  cheating  method  of  pay- 
ment in  commodities,  and  the  fraudulent  reckoning 
of  material,  on  the  part  of  the  employed  the  embezzle- 
ment of  material.  The  act  of  4  Edward  IV.  runs 
thus : 

"Whereas,  before  this  time  in  the  occupations  of  cloth-making, 
the  laborers  have  been  driven  to  take  a  great  part  of  their  wages  in 
pins,  girdles  and  other  unprofitable  wares and  also  have  deliv- 
ered to  them  wools  to  be  wrought  at  very  excessive  weight,  whereby 
both  men  and  women  have  been  discouraged  of  such  labor,  there- 
fore it  is  ordained that  every  man  and  woman,  being  cloth- 
makers,  shall  pay  to  the  carders,  carderesses,  spinsters  and  all  other 
laborers  in  any  part  of  the  said  trade,  lawful  money  for  all  their 
lawful  wages and  shall  also  deliver  wools  to  be  wrought  accord- 
ing to  the  due  weight  thereof.  Also  it  is  ordained,  that  every  carder, 
carderess,  spinster,  weaver,  fuller,  shearman  and  dyer,  shall  da 
his  work  duly  in  his  occupation,  on  pain  of  yielding  to  the  party 
aggrieved  double  damages."  1 

A  contemporary  poem  describes  the  same  evils  : 

"An  ordynaunce  wolde  be  maad  for  the  poore  porayle, 
That  in  thyse  dayes  have  but  lytyll  avayle, 
That  is  to  sey  for  spynners,  carders,  weavers  also 
Ffor  toukers,  dyers,  and  shermyn  therto. 

"For  in  thyse  dayes  ther  is  a  hewsaunce 
That  puttyth  the  pore  pepylle  to  grett  hynderaunce 
By  a  strange  mene  that  is  late  in  londe 
Began  and  used,  as  y  undyrstonde. 

1  Statutes  ii.  405.  Half  a  century  later  the  prohibition  of  truck 
was  renewed  by  3  Hy.  VIII.  c.  6,  (Statutes,  iii.  28)  which  mention 
all  the  stages  of  manufacture  :  "Every  clothier  or  other  person  who 
shall  put  or  deliver  to  any  person  any  wool  to  break,  kembe,  card 
or  spin,  or  yarn  to  the  weavers  to  webbe,  or  webbe  to  the  fullers- 
to  fulle,  walke  or  thikke,"  etc. 


378]  English  Woollen  Industry.  83 

"By  merchaundes  and  clothmakers,  for  Godys  sake  take  kepe, 
The  wyche  makythe  the  poreylle  to  morne  and  weep, 
Lytell  thei  take  for  thy  re  labur,  yet  halff  is  merchaundyse; 
Alas  !  for  rewthe,  yt  ys  gret 


Hall's  account  of  the  popular  discontent  in  1525 
and  1528  proves  that  in  the  districts  in  which  the 
clothmaking  industry  was  then  chiefly  carried  on, 
the  southern  and  eastern  countries,  the  craftsmen 
were  universally  dependent  on  the  clothiers.  Heavy 
taxation  and  the  cessation  of  foreign  trade  is  repre- 
sented as  causing  the  clothiers  to  "put  from  work" 
great  bodies  of  men  and  women,  who  are  left  with- 
out means  of  subsistence,  and  whose  only  resource  is 
rebellion.2  It  was  in  vain  that  Wolsey  endeavored 
to  bully  the  drapers  into  buying  from  the  clothiers 
stocks  of  cloth  of  which  th^y  knew  they  could  not 
dispose.3  Substantially  the  same  relations  existed, 
it  is  clear,  between  employers  and  employed  as  ap- 
pear at  the  end  of  last  century  in  the  eastern  and 
western  counties  —  what  the  report  of  1806  calls 
"the  system  of  the  master-clothier  of  the  west  of 
England." 

Now  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  impulse  to- 
wards this  extension  of  a  freer  industry  into  the 
country  was  given  primarily  by  the  new  mercantile 
capital  which  successful  trade  had  created.  This  is 
indicated  among  other  evidence  by  the  mention  of 
"merchants"  by  the  versifier  quoted  above,  by  the 
frequent  complaints  against  foreign  merchants,4  and 
by  the  charge  against  the  Merchant  Adventurers, 
that  they  had  "caused  foul  cloths  to  be  made  in 

1  Wright,  Political  Poems,  Kolls.'  Series,  ii.  285. 

2  Union  of  Lancaster  and  York,  (ed.  1809),  699-700. 

3  Ib.  745.  Cf.  Brewer,  Henry  VIII.,  261. 

*E.  g.,  against  the  merchants  of  Italy  1  Eic.  III.,  c.  9  Statutes  ii.  489. 


84  HJnglish  Woollen  Industry.  [379 

England  for  low  prices,  to  truck  and  barter  them  for 
merchandises  in  other  countries."1  But  when  once 
the  movement  had  begun  it  would  be  followed  by  all 
who  saw  their  opportunity,  by  woolstaplers,  by 
drapers,  by  landed  proprietors,  by  energetic  artisans 
from  the  towns.  The  requisite  labor  would  readily 
be  found  in  the  unemployed  of  the  agricultural  dis- 
tricts, and  the  necessary  technical  skill  could  be 
acquired  from  the  journeymen  whom  the  jealous 
restriction  of  guild  privileges  by  the  master-artisans 
had  driven  from  the  towns. 

Limitations  of  space  prevent  the  present  sketch  of 
the  history  of  the  woollen  industry  from  being  carried 
farther.  Otherwise  it  would  have  been  interesting 
to  trace  the  regulations  of  the  Tudors  as  to  the  quality 
of  cloth  and  as  to  apprenticeship,  and  to  consider 
how  far  these  were  dictated  by  the  jealous  endeavors 
of  the  town  craftsmen  to  hinder  the  growth  of  the 
industry  in  the  country,  and  how  far  they  were 
guided  by  a  wise  policy  on  the  part  of  the  government 
which  aimed  at  maintaining  a  certain  standard  of 
work.2  For  the  social  history  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  much  still  remains  to  be  done. 
The  introduction  of  the  "new  draperies"  with  the 
second  immigration  of  weavers  from  the  low  coun- 
tries under  Elizabeth,3  with  which  began  what  has 
been  called  the  "Norwich  period"  of  the  cloth  indus- 
try,4 has  still  to  be  investigated  in  detail ;  so  has  also 
the  growth  of  the  industry  in  the  western  counties 

1  Armstrong's  Sermon  in  Pauli  Drei  Volksw.    Denkschr.  65. 

2 See  for  one  view  Held,  Zwei  Biicher  27 ;  for  another  Schanz, 
607  seq. 

3The  old  distich  ran,  "Hops,  Reformation,  Bays  and  Beer,  came 
into  England  all  in  a  year." 

4Seeley,  Expansion  of  England,  85. 


380]  English  Woollen  Industry.  85 

and  in  Yorkshire.1  Towards  the  history  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  more  has  been  accomplished,  but  the 
interest  increases  as  we  come  nearer  to  our  own  time, 
and  the  various  elements  in  the  economic  develop- 
ment have  never  yet  been  shewn  in  their  relation  to 
one  another.  The  appearance  towards  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century  of  a  new  class  of  factors  and 
great  merchants  ;2  the  abandonment  under  mercan- 
tile pressure  of  the  policy  of  preserving  the  quality 
of  cloth  ;3  the  growth  of  credit  ;4  the  struggle  between 
the  woollen  and  cotton  interests  ;5 — all  these  prepar- 
ing the  way  for  the  factory  and  machine  industry  of 
to-day — are  of  the  most  vital  importance  for  the 
social  history  of  England.  But  for  the  present  we 
must  be  content  with  having  traced  the  earlier  stages 
of  the  long  evolution. 

JThe  act  of  25  Henry  VIII.,  aimed  at  preventing  the  making  of 
cloth  for  sale  in  Worcestershire  outside  the  towns  ;  and  Yorkshire 
with  Northumberland  and  Cumberland  was  excepted  from  two  and 
three  Php.  and  Mary  c.  11,  limiting  the  number  of  looms  and  appren- 
tices of  weavers. 

2  A  tract  England's  Improvements  (1677)  quoted  by  Smith,  Memoirs 
of  Wool,  i.,  318,  says  :  "The  Factors,  Drawers  and  Packers  are  now 
turned  merchants,  and  the  trade  is  ruined  by  them.    Formerly  it 
was  you  Clothiers  and  we  Drapers,  and  now  it  is  another  thing." 

3  Sir  Josiah  Child,   Trade  and  Interest  of  Money  Considered  (1693) 
131 :     "All  our  laws  that  oblige  our  people  to  the  making  of  strong, 
substantial  and  loyal  cloth,  of  a  certain  length,  breadth  and  weight, 
if  they  were  duly  put  in  execution,  would  in  my  opinion,  do  more 
hurt  than  good ;  because  the  humors  and  fashions  of  the  world 
change    *    *    *    *    If  we  intend  to  have  the  trade  of  the  world, 
we  must  imitate  the  Dutch,  who  make  the  worst  as  well  as  the  best 
of  all  manufacturers.     *    *    *    *    Stretching  "of  cloth,  by  tentors, 
though  it  be  sometimes  prejudicial  to  the  cloth  is  yet  absolutely 
necessary  to  the  trade  of  England." 

4  For  illustrations  of  the  use  of  credit,  see  Defoe,  Complete  Eng- 
lish Tradesman,  352,  356,  358. 

5  Held.  505  seq. 


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